Kearney, NE
How exposed is Kearney to wildfire?
Kearney's 12,962 buildings earn a 60th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Kearney at the 53rd percentile, close to its 60th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Kearney's buildings (83.2% of 12,962) 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. At 12,962 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Kearney compares
There's little gap between Kearney's 60th national percentile and its 51st percentile inside Nebraska, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Kearney ranks 12,640 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,173 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 287 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Kearney
Kearney's elevated rating (60th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Kearney
Even with 83.2% of Kearney outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Kearney's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Kearney's 12,640-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Kearney's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.