Fort Scott, KS
Fort Scott wildfire risk explained
Fort Scott sits at the 67th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 4,782 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Fort Scott at the 68th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Fort Scott's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Fort Scott (58.1% of 4,782 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 11.8% sit in the Direct zone.
Where Fort Scott ranks
Fort Scott scores 67th nationally and 62nd within Kansas — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fort Scott ranks 10,428 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,566 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 272 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Fort Scott
Fort Scott's 67th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Fort Scott's 58.1% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Fort Scott's 10,428-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Fort Scott, see the exposure-zones guide.