Plano, IA
How exposed is Plano to wildfire?
Plano sits at the 66th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 99 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 Plano at the 67th percentile, close to its 66th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 60.6% of Plano's 99 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 39.4% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Plano against the rest of the country
Compare Plano's two percentiles: 90th within Iowa, only 66th nationally — a gap of 24 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Plano ranks 10,772 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,077 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 107 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Plano and the insurance market
Plano's high rating (66th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Plano's 60.6% 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.
Where Plano's figures come from
Plano's 66th-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 Plano's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.