Marengo, WI
Marengo wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Marengo at the 21st national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 122 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Marengo at the 22nd national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Marengo's buildings actually sit
Direct exposure dominates in Marengo: 50% of its 122 buildings, versus 50% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Marengo compares
Marengo's risk sits at a similar level relative to Wisconsin (34th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (21st) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Marengo ranks 24,945 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 28,091 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 534 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Marengo's moderate wildfire rating (21st 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Marengo's 50% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Marengo's 24,945-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Marengo, see the exposure-zones guide.