Le Claire, IA
Le Claire wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Le Claire at the 40th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 2,186 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 Le Claire at the 43rd percentile, close to its 40th-percentile risk score.
Where Le Claire's buildings actually sit
Le Claire rates 74.3% Minimal exposure against just 25.8% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 2,186 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Le Claire compares
Compare Le Claire's two percentiles: 56th within Iowa, only 40th nationally — a gap of 15 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Le Claire ranks 18,778 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,973 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 452 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Le Claire and the insurance market
Le Claire's elevated wildfire rating (40th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 74.3% of Le Claire 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.
Where Le Claire's figures come from
Le Claire's 40th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Le Claire's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.