Grand Island, NE
Grand Island, NE's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Grand Island at the 44th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 22,241 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Grand Island at the 37th national percentile — 7 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Grand Island's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Grand Island's buildings (96.7% of 22,241) 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 22,241 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Grand Island compares
Grand Island's 44th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 28th ranking inside Nebraska does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 16 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Grand Island ranks 17,717 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 610 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 419 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Grand Island
At the 44th national percentile, Grand Island rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Grand Island's 96.7% 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 Grand Island's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Grand Island's 17,717-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Grand Island's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.