Emporia, KS
Emporia wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Emporia at the 79th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 10,030 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Emporia at the 74th national percentile — 6 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 6.3% of Emporia's 10,030 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 93.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 10,030 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Emporia ranks
Emporia's risk sits at a similar level relative to Kansas (78th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (79th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Emporia ranks 6,553 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,604 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 160 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Emporia's high rating (79th 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 Emporia
Even with 93.8% of Emporia 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.
Where Emporia's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Emporia's 6,553-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Emporia's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.