Hay Springs, NE
How exposed is Hay Springs to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Hay Springs lands at the 93rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 573 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Hay Springs at the 91st national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Hay Springs's buildings actually sit
Most of Hay Springs's buildings (97.9%) 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.
How Hay Springs compares
Hay Springs's risk sits at a similar level relative to Nebraska (100th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (93rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Hay Springs ranks 2,139 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,196 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 4 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
Hay Springs and the insurance market
Hay Springs's 93rd-percentile, very 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
Hay Springs's 97.9% 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.
Where Hay Springs's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 573 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Hay Springs. The exposure-zones guide covers what Hay Springs's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.