Heltonville, IN
How exposed is Heltonville to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Heltonville lands at the 18th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 179 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Heltonville at the 19th percentile, close to its 18th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
98.3% of Heltonville's 179 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 176 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 1.7% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
How Heltonville compares
Within Indiana, Heltonville ranks higher (76th percentile) than it does nationally (18th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Heltonville ranks 25,770 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,667 by building count (1 is largest). Within Indiana alone, it ranks 238 of 967 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Indiana on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Heltonville
Heltonville's low wildfire rating (18th 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
Heltonville's 98.3% 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 Heltonville's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 179 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Heltonville. The exposure-zones guide covers what Heltonville's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.