Elkader, IA
How exposed is Elkader to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Elkader lands at the 32nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 824 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Elkader at the 33rd percentile, close to its 32nd-percentile risk score.
Elkader's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Elkader's buildings (89.2%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Elkader against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Elkader's 32nd national percentile and its 47th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Elkader ranks 21,454 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,409 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 541 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Elkader
Elkader's moderate wildfire rating (32nd 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.
Hardening a home in Elkader
Because 89.2% of Elkader's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Elkader's figures come from
Elkader's 32nd-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 Elkader's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.