Lake City, MN
Lake City wildfire risk explained
Lake City sits at the 23rd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 3,087 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Lake City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 23rd percentile nationally.
Lake City's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Lake City's buildings (65.1%) 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 Lake City compares
Lake City's risk sits at a similar level relative to Minnesota (27th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (23rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake City ranks 24,333 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,302 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 670 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Lake City's moderate wildfire rating (23rd 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 Lake City
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Lake City (65.1% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Lake City's 23rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Lake City, see the exposure-zones guide.