Franklin, MN
Franklin wildfire risk explained
Franklin sits at the 35th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 319 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Franklin at the 31st percentile, close to its 35th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 80.3% of Franklin's 319 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 19.8% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Franklin compares
Franklin's risk sits at a similar level relative to Minnesota (45th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (35th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Franklin ranks 20,419 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,118 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 501 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Franklin and the insurance market
Franklin's moderate wildfire rating (35th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Franklin (80.3% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Franklin's 20,419-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Franklin, see the exposure-zones guide.