Ellison Bay, WI
How exposed is Ellison Bay to wildfire?
USFS scores Ellison Bay at the 38th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 411 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ellison Bay at the 39th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Ellison Bay's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Ellison Bay's 411 counted buildings, 77.4% carry Direct exposure and only 1% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Ellison Bay against the rest of the country
Within Wisconsin, Ellison Bay ranks higher (89th percentile) than it does nationally (38th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ellison Bay ranks 19,462 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,027 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 88 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Ellison Bay and the insurance market
At the 38th national percentile, Ellison Bay rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Ellison Bay's 77.4% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Ellison Bay's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Ellison Bay's 19,462-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Ellison Bay's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.