Fort Dodge, IA
Fort Dodge, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Fort Dodge lands at the 32nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 12,332 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Fort Dodge at the 30th percentile, close to its 32nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Fort Dodge's buildings (51.4% of 12,332) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 12,332 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Fort Dodge against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Fort Dodge's 32nd national percentile and its 47th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fort Dodge ranks 21,455 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,253 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 542 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Fort Dodge and the insurance market
At the 32nd national percentile, Fort Dodge rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Fort Dodge
With 51.4% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Fort Dodge gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Fort Dodge's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 12,332 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Fort Dodge. The exposure-zones guide covers what Fort Dodge's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.