Dow City, IA
How exposed is Dow City to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Dow City at the 42nd national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 343 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Dow City at the 41st national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 10.5% of Dow City's 343 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 89.5% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Dow City against the rest of the country
Dow City's 58th-percentile standing inside Iowa outpaces its 42nd national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dow City ranks 18,268 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,483 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 429 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Dow City and the insurance market
At the 42nd national percentile, Dow City rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Dow City
Dow City's 89.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 343 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Dow City. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Dow City, see the exposure-zones guide.