Mellen, WI
Mellen wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Mellen at the 11th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 591 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Mellen at the 11th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Mellen's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 65.3% of Mellen's 591 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 34.7% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Mellen compares
Mellen's risk sits at a similar level relative to Wisconsin (8th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (11th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mellen ranks 28,069 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,959 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 743 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
At the 11th national percentile, Mellen rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Mellen
Because 65.3% of Mellen's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Mellen's 28,069-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Mellen, see the exposure-zones guide.