Iola, TX
How exposed is Iola to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Iola lands at the 78th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 329 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 Iola at the 80th percentile, close to its 78th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
329 buildings are counted in Iola, and 54.7% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 45.3% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Iola against the rest of the country
Inside Texas, Iola sits at just the 55th percentile even though it scores 78th 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, Iola ranks 7,039 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,861 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 809 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Iola
Iola's 78th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Iola (54.7% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Iola's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Iola's 7,039-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Iola's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.