Macksburg, IA
Macksburg wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Macksburg at the 54th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 157 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Macksburg at the 54th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 22.9% of Macksburg's 157 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 77.1% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Macksburg ranks
Macksburg's 74th-percentile standing inside Iowa outpaces its 54th 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, Macksburg ranks 14,526 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,563 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 266 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Macksburg and the insurance market
Macksburg's elevated wildfire rating (54th 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.
Hardening a home in Macksburg
Macksburg's 77.1% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Macksburg's figures come from
Macksburg's 54th-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 Macksburg's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.