Leon, IA
Leon wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Leon at the 73rd national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 1,266 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Leon at the 75th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Leon's buildings actually sit
74.5% of Leon's 1,266 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 25.5% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Where Leon ranks
Leon's 96th-percentile standing inside Iowa outpaces its 73rd national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Leon ranks 8,471 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,268 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 38 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Leon's 73rd-percentile, 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
Because 74.5% of Leon's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Leon's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Leon's 8,471-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Leon's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.