Loretto, MN
How exposed is Loretto to wildfire?
Loretto sits at the 55th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 259 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Loretto's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 52nd percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Loretto rates 92.7% Minimal exposure against just 7.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 259 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Loretto against the rest of the country
Compare Loretto's two percentiles: 81st within Minnesota, only 55th nationally — a gap of 26 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Loretto ranks 14,118 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,856 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 177 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Loretto's elevated rating (55th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Loretto
Even with 92.7% of Loretto 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Loretto's 14,118-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Loretto, see the exposure-zones guide.