Knox City, MO
How exposed is Knox City to wildfire?
Knox City's 208 buildings earn a 48th-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.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Knox City at the 50th national percentile — 2 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 Knox City's buildings (63% of 208) 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.
Knox City against the rest of the country
Knox City's 48th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 29th ranking inside Missouri does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 19 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Knox City ranks 16,389 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,559 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 754 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
Knox City and the insurance market
Knox City's elevated wildfire rating (48th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 63% of Knox City 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Knox City's 16,389-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Knox City, see the exposure-zones guide.