Mendota, MN
Mendota, MN's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Mendota at the 39th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 147 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Mendota at the 37th percentile, close to its 39th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 77.6% of Mendota's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 22.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Mendota against the rest of the country
Mendota's risk sits at a similar level relative to Minnesota (53rd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (39th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mendota ranks 19,161 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,990 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 431 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Mendota and the insurance market
Mendota's moderate rating (39th 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
Mendota's 77.6% 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.
Where Mendota's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Mendota's 19,161-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mendota's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.