Orestes, IN
Orestes wildfire risk explained
Orestes sits at the 6th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 291 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Orestes at the 6th percentile, close to its 6th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
89.7% of Orestes's 291 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 10.3% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Where Orestes ranks
Within Indiana, Orestes ranks higher (44th percentile) than it does nationally (6th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Orestes ranks 29,497 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,877 by building count (1 is largest). Within Indiana alone, it ranks 543 of 967 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Indiana on its state page.
Orestes and the insurance market
At the 6th national percentile, Orestes rates low 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 Orestes
Even with 89.7% of Orestes outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Orestes's 29,497-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Orestes, see the exposure-zones guide.