Melvindale, MI
Melvindale wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Melvindale at the 4th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 5,398 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Melvindale at the 5th national percentile — 1 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
Melvindale rates 99.9% Minimal exposure against just 0.1% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 5,398 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 5,398 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Melvindale against the rest of the country
Melvindale scores 4th nationally and 7th within Michigan — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Melvindale ranks 30,385 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,197 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 697 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Melvindale
Melvindale's low rating (4th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
With 99.9% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Melvindale gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,398 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Melvindale. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Melvindale, see the exposure-zones guide.