Howard, WI
Howard, WI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Howard lands at the 19th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 7,683 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Howard at the 20th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Howard's buildings actually sit
Only 26.2% of Howard's 7,683 buildings carry Direct exposure and 3.2% carry Indirect; the remaining 70.6% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 7,683 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Howard compares
Howard scores 19th nationally and 26th within Wisconsin — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Howard ranks 25,673 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,220 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 597 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Howard
At the 19th national percentile, Howard rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 70.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Howard 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
Howard's 19th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Howard, see the exposure-zones guide.