Hesston, KS
Hesston wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Hesston at the 36th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 1,529 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Hesston's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 32nd percentile nationally.
Hesston's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 85.8% of Hesston's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 14.2% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Hesston against the rest of the country
Inside Kansas, Hesston sits at just the 13th percentile even though it scores 36th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Hesston ranks 20,166 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,043 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 630 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Hesston
Hesston's moderate wildfire rating (36th 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 Hesston
Even with 85.8% of Hesston 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 Hesston's 20,166-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Hesston, see the exposure-zones guide.