Lake Waconda, NE
Lake Waconda wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Lake Waconda at the 75th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 277 actual buildings. (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 Waconda at the 74th percentile, close to its 75th-percentile risk score.
Where Lake Waconda's buildings actually sit
Most of Lake Waconda's buildings (59.6%) 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 Waconda compares
Lake Waconda scores 75th nationally and 78th within Nebraska — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake Waconda ranks 7,947 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,297 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 132 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Lake Waconda
Lake Waconda's high rating (75th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Lake Waconda (59.6% 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 Waconda's 75th-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 Waconda, see the exposure-zones guide.