Dubuque, IA
How exposed is Dubuque to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Dubuque at the 25th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 23,739 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Dubuque's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 26th percentile nationally.
Dubuque's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 12.1% of Dubuque's 23,739 buildings carry Direct exposure and 10.1% carry Indirect; the remaining 77.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 23,739 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Dubuque compares
Dubuque's risk sits at a similar level relative to Iowa (38th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (25th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dubuque ranks 23,791 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 542 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 633 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Dubuque's moderate rating (25th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Dubuque's 77.8% 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.
Where Dubuque's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 23,739 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Dubuque. The exposure-zones guide covers what Dubuque's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.