Poplar Bluff, MO
Poplar Bluff, MO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Poplar Bluff lands at the 53rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 8,286 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Poplar Bluff at the 55th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Poplar Bluff's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Poplar Bluff's buildings (47.5%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 8,286 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Poplar Bluff against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Poplar Bluff's 53rd national percentile and its 38th percentile inside Missouri, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Poplar Bluff ranks 14,940 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,013 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 659 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Poplar Bluff
At the 53rd national percentile, Poplar Bluff rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Poplar Bluff (47.5% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 8,286 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Poplar Bluff. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Poplar Bluff, see the exposure-zones guide.