Portsmouth, IA
Portsmouth wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Portsmouth at the 30th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 186 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Portsmouth at the 28th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Portsmouth rates 90.9% Minimal exposure against just 9.1% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 186 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Portsmouth compares
Portsmouth scores 30th nationally and 45th within Iowa — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Portsmouth ranks 22,057 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,388 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 564 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
At the 30th national percentile, Portsmouth rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Portsmouth
Even with 90.9% of Portsmouth 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.
More on how this number was built
Portsmouth's 30th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Portsmouth, see the exposure-zones guide.