Ithaca, MI
Ithaca wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Ithaca at the 2nd national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 1,649 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ithaca at the 2nd national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Ithaca's buildings (86.4% of 1,649) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
Ithaca against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Ithaca's 2nd national percentile and its 4th percentile inside Michigan, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ithaca ranks 30,830 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,594 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 720 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Ithaca and the insurance market
Ithaca's low rating (2nd percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Ithaca's 86.4% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,649 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Ithaca. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Ithaca, see the exposure-zones guide.