Medford, WI
Medford wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Medford at the 19th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 2,674 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 19th national percentile — 0 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
USFS classifies 34.7% of Medford's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 33.9% Direct and 31.4% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Medford ranks
Medford's risk sits at a similar level relative to Wisconsin (26th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (19th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Medford ranks 25,642 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,975 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 596 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
Medford and the insurance market
At the 19th national percentile, Medford rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 34.7% of Medford 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Medford's 25,642-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Medford, see the exposure-zones guide.