Nickerson, NE
Nickerson, NE's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Nickerson at the 62nd national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 250 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Nickerson at the 57th percentile, close to its 62nd-percentile risk score.
Nickerson's building exposure, zone by zone
92.8% of Nickerson's 250 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 7.2% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Where Nickerson ranks
Nickerson's risk sits at a similar level relative to Nebraska (54th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (62nd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Nickerson ranks 12,104 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,148 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 270 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Nickerson
Nickerson's 62nd-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 92.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Nickerson 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 250 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Nickerson. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Nickerson, see the exposure-zones guide.