Palo, MI
Palo, MI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Palo lands at the 13th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 162 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Palo at the 12th percentile, close to its 13th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 67.3% of Palo's 162 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 32.7% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Palo compares
Compare Palo's two percentiles: 44th within Michigan, only 13th nationally — a gap of 32 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Palo ranks 27,513 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,339 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 417 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 13th national percentile, Palo rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Palo's 67.3% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 162 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Palo. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Palo, see the exposure-zones guide.