Owasa, IA
Owasa wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Owasa lands at the 16th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 56 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Owasa at the 14th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Owasa's buildings (87.5% of 56) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
How Owasa compares
There's little gap between Owasa's 16th national percentile and its 26th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Owasa ranks 26,591 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,765 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 757 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Owasa and the insurance market
Owasa's low wildfire rating (16th 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 Owasa
Owasa's 87.5% 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.
Where Owasa's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Owasa's 26,591-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Owasa's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.