Lake St. Croix Beach, MN
How exposed is Lake St. Croix Beach to wildfire?
Lake St. Croix Beach sits at the 45th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 650 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Lake St. Croix Beach at the 46th percentile, close to its 45th-percentile risk score.
Lake St. Croix Beach's building exposure, zone by zone
650 buildings are counted in Lake St. Croix Beach, and 66.6% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 33.2% in Direct exposure or the 0.2% rated Minimal.
How Lake St. Croix Beach compares
Compare Lake St. Croix Beach's two percentiles: 64th within Minnesota, only 45th nationally — a gap of 20 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake St. Croix Beach ranks 17,424 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,200 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 326 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Lake St. Croix Beach and the insurance market
Lake St. Croix Beach's elevated wildfire rating (45th 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
Lake St. Croix Beach's 66.6% 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.
Where Lake St. Croix Beach's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Lake St. Croix Beach's 17,424-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lake St. Croix Beach's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.