Estherville, IA
How exposed is Estherville to wildfire?
Estherville sits at the 52nd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 3,552 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Estherville at the 50th national percentile — 2 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
Estherville rates 75.7% Minimal exposure against just 24.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 3,552 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Estherville compares
Compare Estherville's two percentiles: 71st within Iowa, only 52nd nationally — a gap of 19 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Estherville ranks 15,276 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,716 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 298 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Estherville and the insurance market
Estherville's elevated wildfire rating (52nd 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Estherville's 75.7% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Estherville's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Estherville's 15,276-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Estherville's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.