Modale, IA
How exposed is Modale to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Modale at the 36th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 254 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 Modale at the 28th percentile, close to its 36th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Modale rates 83.1% Minimal exposure against just 16.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 254 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Modale compares
Within Iowa, Modale ranks higher (51st percentile) than it does nationally (36th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Modale ranks 20,165 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,011 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 498 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Modale and the insurance market
Modale's moderate rating (36th 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
Even with 83.1% of Modale 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 254 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Modale. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Modale, see the exposure-zones guide.