Ellington, MO
Ellington, MO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Ellington lands at the 75th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 603 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 Ellington at the 77th percentile, close to its 75th-percentile risk score.
Where Ellington's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 55.2% of Ellington's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 44.8% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 333 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Ellington compares
Ellington's 91st-percentile standing inside Missouri outpaces its 75th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ellington ranks 8,005 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,800 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 101 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Ellington
Ellington's 75th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Ellington (55.2%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Ellington's 8,005-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Ellington, see the exposure-zones guide.