Litchfield, NE
Litchfield wildfire risk explained
Litchfield's 294 buildings earn a 80th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Litchfield at the 72nd national percentile — 8 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Litchfield's buildings actually sit
91.8% of Litchfield's 294 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 8.2% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Where Litchfield ranks
There's little gap between Litchfield's 80th national percentile and its 86th percentile inside Nebraska, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Litchfield ranks 6,340 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,794 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 83 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Litchfield's 80th-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
Litchfield's 91.8% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Litchfield's 6,340-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Litchfield, see the exposure-zones guide.