Eldon, IA
Eldon wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Eldon at the 66th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 684 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Eldon's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 68th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Eldon rates 84.9% Minimal exposure against just 15.1% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 684 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Where Eldon ranks
Compare Eldon's two percentiles: 89th within Iowa, only 66th nationally — a gap of 23 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Eldon ranks 10,868 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,825 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 114 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
Eldon's high rating (66th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Eldon
Even with 84.9% of Eldon outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Eldon's 66th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Eldon, see the exposure-zones guide.