Nelson, NE
How exposed is Nelson to wildfire?
Nelson's 480 buildings earn a 48th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Nelson at the 46th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Nelson's building exposure, zone by zone
Nelson rates 70.2% Minimal exposure against just 29.8% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 480 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Nelson against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Nelson's 48th national percentile and its 35th percentile inside Nebraska, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Nelson ranks 16,330 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,706 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 381 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Nelson's elevated wildfire rating (48th 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.
Hardening a home in Nelson
With 70.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Nelson gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Nelson's 16,330-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Nelson, see the exposure-zones guide.