Harpers Ferry, IA
How exposed is Harpers Ferry to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Harpers Ferry at the 38th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 650 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Harpers Ferry's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 39th percentile nationally.
Harpers Ferry's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Harpers Ferry's buildings (85.1%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Harpers Ferry against the rest of the country
Compare Harpers Ferry's two percentiles: 53rd within Iowa, only 38th nationally — a gap of 15 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Harpers Ferry ranks 19,691 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,199 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 482 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Harpers Ferry and the insurance market
Harpers Ferry's moderate wildfire rating (38th 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.
Hardening a home in Harpers Ferry
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Harpers Ferry (85.1% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Harpers Ferry's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Harpers Ferry's 19,691-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Harpers Ferry's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.