Mount Vernon, IA
How exposed is Mount Vernon to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Mount Vernon lands at the 38th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 1,797 buildings, not the land around them. (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 Vernon at the 39th percentile, close to its 38th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Mount Vernon's buildings (78.6% of 1,797) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
How Mount Vernon compares
Mount Vernon's 53rd-percentile standing inside Iowa outpaces its 38th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mount Vernon ranks 19,596 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,074 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 478 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Mount Vernon and the insurance market
At the 38th national percentile, Mount Vernon rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Mount Vernon
With 78.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Mount Vernon gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Mount Vernon's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Mount Vernon's 19,596-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mount Vernon's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.