Parnell, IA
Parnell, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Parnell at the 61st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 155 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Parnell at the 62nd percentile, close to its 61st-percentile risk score.
Parnell's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Parnell's buildings (88.4% of 155) 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 Parnell compares
Compare Parnell's two percentiles: 84th within Iowa, only 61st nationally — a gap of 23 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Parnell ranks 12,381 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,652 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 164 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Parnell and the insurance market
Parnell's 61st-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 88.4% of Parnell outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Parnell's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Parnell's 12,381-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Parnell's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.