Marshalltown, IA
How exposed is Marshalltown to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Marshalltown lands at the 72nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 12,102 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Marshalltown at the 74th national percentile — 2 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
Most of Marshalltown's buildings (49.5% of 12,102) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 12,102 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Marshalltown against the rest of the country
Compare Marshalltown's two percentiles: 96th within Iowa, only 72nd nationally — a gap of 24 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Marshalltown ranks 8,824 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,288 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 47 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Marshalltown
Marshalltown's high rating (72nd 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 Marshalltown
Even with 49.5% of Marshalltown 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
Marshalltown's 72nd-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 Marshalltown, see the exposure-zones guide.