East Lansing, MI
East Lansing, MI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
East Lansing's 9,088 buildings earn a 12th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, East Lansing's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 14th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 73.3% of East Lansing's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 8.5% Direct and 18.2% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 9,088 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
East Lansing against the rest of the country
Within Michigan, East Lansing ranks higher (41st percentile) than it does nationally (12th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, East Lansing ranks 27,734 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,823 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 437 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
East Lansing and the insurance market
East Lansing's low rating (12th 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
East Lansing's 73.3% 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 East Lansing's figures come from
East Lansing's 12th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what East Lansing's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.