Medford, MN
Medford wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Medford at the 21st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 597 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Medford at the 20th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Medford's building exposure, zone by zone
83.3% of Medford's 597 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 16.8% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Where Medford ranks
Medford scores 21st nationally and 25th within Minnesota — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Medford ranks 24,777 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,883 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 687 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Medford
Medford'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.
What would actually reduce this score
Medford's 83.3% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Medford's 21st-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 Medford, see the exposure-zones guide.