Lancaster, MN
How exposed is Lancaster to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Lancaster at the 89th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 335 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 Lancaster at the 90th percentile, close to its 89th-percentile risk score.
Where Lancaster's buildings actually sit
335 buildings are counted in Lancaster, and 54% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 46% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
How Lancaster compares
Lancaster's risk sits at a similar level relative to Minnesota (99th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (89th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lancaster ranks 3,566 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,699 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 8 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Lancaster
Lancaster's 89th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Lancaster (54% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Lancaster's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 335 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Lancaster. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lancaster's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.