Mount Sterling, IA
Mount Sterling, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Mount Sterling at the 73rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 40 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 Mount Sterling at the 74th percentile, close to its 73rd-percentile risk score.
Mount Sterling's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 70% of Mount Sterling's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 30% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 28 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Mount Sterling against the rest of the country
Compare Mount Sterling's two percentiles: 96th within Iowa, only 73rd nationally — a gap of 23 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mount Sterling ranks 8,505 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,167 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 40 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Mount Sterling
Mount Sterling's 73rd-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Mount Sterling
With 70% of Mount Sterling in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Mount Sterling's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 40 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Mount Sterling. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mount Sterling's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.