Grinnell, IA
Grinnell, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Grinnell lands at the 58th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 4,013 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Grinnell at the 60th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Grinnell's building exposure, zone by zone
Grinnell rates 87.9% Minimal exposure against just 12.1% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 4,013 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Grinnell compares
Compare Grinnell's two percentiles: 81st within Iowa, only 58th nationally — a gap of 23 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Grinnell ranks 13,139 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,237 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 192 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Grinnell's elevated rating (58th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Grinnell
Even with 87.9% of Grinnell 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Grinnell's 13,139-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Grinnell, see the exposure-zones guide.