Otho, IA
Otho wildfire risk explained
Otho sits at the 19th 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 354 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 Otho at the 18th percentile, close to its 19th-percentile risk score.
Where Otho's buildings actually sit
Only 14.7% of Otho's 354 buildings carry Direct exposure and 24.9% carry Indirect; the remaining 60.5% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Otho against the rest of the country
Otho's risk sits at a similar level relative to Iowa (31st percentile statewide) as it does nationally (19th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Otho ranks 25,520 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,210 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 702 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Otho and the insurance market
Otho's low wildfire rating (19th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Otho's 60.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 354 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Otho. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Otho, see the exposure-zones guide.