Montour, IA
Montour, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Montour at the 71st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 251 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Montour at the 72nd percentile, close to its 71st-percentile risk score.
Where Montour's buildings actually sit
251 buildings are counted in Montour, and 51.4% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 35.5% in Direct exposure or the 13.2% rated Minimal.
Montour against the rest of the country
Compare Montour's two percentiles: 95th within Iowa, only 71st nationally — a gap of 24 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Montour ranks 9,167 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,103 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 56 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Montour
At the 71st percentile nationally, Montour carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 51.4% of Montour's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Montour's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Montour's 9,167-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Montour's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.