Jackson, MI
Jackson wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Jackson lands at the 16th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 14,306 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Jackson at the 17th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Jackson's buildings actually sit
Jackson rates 81.9% Minimal exposure against just 3.8% Direct and 14.3% Indirect — of 14,306 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 14,306 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Jackson against the rest of the country
Compare Jackson's two percentiles: 54th within Michigan, only 16th nationally — a gap of 38 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Jackson ranks 26,633 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,048 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 346 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Jackson's low wildfire rating (16th 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 Jackson
Jackson's 81.9% 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.
Where Jackson's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Jackson's 26,633-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Jackson's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.