Manitowoc, WI
Manitowoc wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Manitowoc lands at the 12th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 18,166 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Manitowoc at the 13th percentile, close to its 12th-percentile risk score.
Manitowoc's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 90.1% of Manitowoc's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 6% Direct and 4% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 18,166 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Manitowoc ranks
There's little gap between Manitowoc's 12th national percentile and its 11th percentile inside Wisconsin, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Manitowoc ranks 27,627 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 786 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 719 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Manitowoc
Manitowoc's low rating (12th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
With 90.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Manitowoc gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Manitowoc's figures come from
Manitowoc's 12th-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 Manitowoc's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.