Houston Lake, MO
How exposed is Houston Lake to wildfire?
USFS scores Houston Lake at the 61st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 139 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Houston Lake at the 64th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Houston Lake's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 51.1% of Houston Lake's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 48.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Houston Lake compares
Houston Lake's risk sits at a similar level relative to Missouri (58th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (61st) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Houston Lake ranks 12,355 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,334 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 446 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
Houston Lake and the insurance market
At the 61st percentile nationally, Houston Lake carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
With 51.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Houston Lake gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 139 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Houston Lake. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Houston Lake, see the exposure-zones guide.