Madelia, MN
How exposed is Madelia to wildfire?
Madelia sits at the 15th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,224 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Madelia at the 11th national percentile — 4 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Madelia's building exposure, zone by zone
Madelia rates 86.7% Minimal exposure against just 13.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 1,224 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Madelia against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Madelia's 15th national percentile and its 19th percentile inside Minnesota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Madelia ranks 26,797 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,507 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 740 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Madelia
Madelia's low rating (15th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 86.7% of Madelia 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
Madelia's 15th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Madelia, see the exposure-zones guide.