Madison, KS
How exposed is Madison to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Madison at the 93rd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 538 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Madison at the 91st national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
74.9% of Madison's 538 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 25.1% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Madison against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Madison's 93rd national percentile and its 94th percentile inside Kansas, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Madison ranks 2,135 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,747 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 44 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Madison's very high rating (93rd percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Madison
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Madison (74.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Madison's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Madison's 2,135-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Madison's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.