Eldora, IA
Eldora wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Eldora at the 55th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 1,598 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Eldora at the 56th percentile, close to its 55th-percentile risk score.
Where Eldora's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 86.7% of Eldora's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 13.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Eldora ranks
Within Iowa, Eldora ranks higher (75th percentile) than it does nationally (55th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Eldora ranks 14,147 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,773 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 253 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Eldora
Eldora's elevated wildfire rating (55th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Eldora's 86.7% 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 Eldora's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,598 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Eldora. The exposure-zones guide covers what Eldora's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.