Helenville, WI
Helenville wildfire risk explained
Helenville's 177 buildings earn a 35th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Helenville at the 36th percentile, close to its 35th-percentile risk score.
Helenville's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 58.2% of Helenville's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 0.6% Indirect share and far above its 41.2% Minimal share — a profile where 103 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Helenville against the rest of the country
Compare Helenville's two percentiles: 82nd within Wisconsin, only 35th nationally — a gap of 47 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Helenville ranks 20,408 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,766 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 142 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Helenville and the insurance market
Helenville'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
Helenville's 58.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Helenville's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 177 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Helenville. The exposure-zones guide covers what Helenville's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.