Pleasant Plain, IA
Pleasant Plain wildfire risk explained
Pleasant Plain sits at the 42nd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 96 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 Pleasant Plain at the 43rd percentile, close to its 42nd-percentile risk score.
Pleasant Plain's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 13.5% of Pleasant Plain's 96 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 86.5% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Pleasant Plain against the rest of the country
Within Iowa, Pleasant Plain ranks higher (58th percentile) than it does nationally (42nd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pleasant Plain ranks 18,269 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,230 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 430 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Pleasant Plain and the insurance market
Pleasant Plain's elevated wildfire rating (42nd 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
With 86.5% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Pleasant Plain gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Pleasant Plain's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 96 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pleasant Plain. The exposure-zones guide covers what Pleasant Plain's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.