Meservey, IA
Meservey, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Meservey at the 2nd national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 195 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Meservey's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 2nd percentile nationally.
Meservey's building exposure, zone by zone
Meservey rates 91.8% Minimal exposure against just 8.2% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 195 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Where Meservey ranks
There's little gap between Meservey's 2nd national percentile and its 2nd percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Meservey ranks 30,951 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,025 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 994 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Meservey's low wildfire rating (2nd 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.
Hardening a home in Meservey
Even with 91.8% of Meservey 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 Meservey's 30,951-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Meservey, see the exposure-zones guide.