Palisade, MN
Palisade, MN's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Palisade's 206 buildings earn a 51st-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Palisade at the 51st percentile, close to its 51st-percentile risk score.
Where Palisade's buildings actually sit
Most of Palisade's buildings (59.2%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Palisade ranks
Compare Palisade's two percentiles: 76th within Minnesota, only 51st nationally — a gap of 25 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Palisade ranks 15,348 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,642 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 222 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Palisade and the insurance market
Palisade's elevated wildfire rating (51st 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
Because 59.2% of Palisade's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Palisade's figures come from
Palisade's 51st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Palisade's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.