Escanaba, MI
Escanaba, MI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Escanaba's 7,312 buildings earn a 28th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Escanaba at the 28th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Escanaba's buildings actually sit
55.2% of Escanaba's 7,312 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 6.4% Direct and 38.5% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone. At 7,312 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Escanaba against the rest of the country
Compare Escanaba's two percentiles: 79th within Michigan, only 28th nationally — a gap of 51 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Escanaba ranks 22,852 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,342 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 158 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Escanaba
Escanaba's moderate rating (28th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Escanaba's 55.2% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Escanaba's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Escanaba's 22,852-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Escanaba's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.