Polk City, IA
How exposed is Polk City to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Polk City at the 36th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 2,213 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Polk City at the 36th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Polk City's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 40.4% of Polk City's 2,213 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 34% Direct and 25.6% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Polk City against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Polk City's 36th national percentile and its 50th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Polk City ranks 20,291 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,902 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 505 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Polk City's moderate rating (36th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Polk City's 40.4% 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 2,213 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Polk City. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Polk City, see the exposure-zones guide.