Falls City, NE
How exposed is Falls City to wildfire?
USFS scores Falls City at the 49th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 2,825 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Falls City at the 49th percentile, close to its 49th-percentile risk score.
Where Falls City's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 95.1% of Falls City's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 4.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Falls City ranks
Falls City scores 49th nationally and 35th within Nebraska — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Falls City ranks 16,139 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,711 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 378 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
Falls City and the insurance market
Falls City's elevated rating (49th 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
Even with 95.1% of Falls City 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 Falls City's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Falls City's 16,139-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Falls City's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.