Orono, MN
Orono wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Orono at the 48th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 4,341 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Orono's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 47th percentile nationally.
Orono's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Orono's 4,341 counted buildings, 64.1% carry Direct exposure and only 34.3% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Orono against the rest of the country
Compare Orono's two percentiles: 72nd within Minnesota, only 48th nationally — a gap of 23 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Orono ranks 16,261 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,940 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 260 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Orono and the insurance market
Orono'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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 64.1% of Orono 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.
More on how this number was built
Orono's 48th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Orono, see the exposure-zones guide.