Kalkaska, MI
Kalkaska, MI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Kalkaska lands at the 51st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,289 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Kalkaska at the 49th national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Kalkaska's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Kalkaska's buildings (89.7%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Kalkaska compares
Kalkaska's 96th-percentile standing inside Michigan outpaces its 51st national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Kalkaska ranks 15,377 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,133 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 33 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Kalkaska and the insurance market
At the 51st national percentile, Kalkaska rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Kalkaska
Kalkaska's 89.7% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Kalkaska's 15,377-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Kalkaska, see the exposure-zones guide.