Monticello, IA
How exposed is Monticello to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Monticello lands at the 17th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 2,105 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Monticello's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 16th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
48.7% of Monticello's 2,105 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 14.9% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
How Monticello compares
There's little gap between Monticello's 17th national percentile and its 27th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Monticello ranks 26,277 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,178 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 742 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Monticello
Monticello's low wildfire rating (17th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Monticello's 48.7% 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 Monticello's figures come from
Monticello's 17th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Monticello's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.