Ralston, IA
Ralston, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Ralston at the 7th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 128 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ralston at the 6th national percentile — 1 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
Ralston rates 87.5% Minimal exposure against just 12.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 128 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Ralston against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Ralston's 7th national percentile and its 14th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ralston ranks 29,465 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,794 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 872 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Ralston
Ralston's low rating (7th 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
With 87.5% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Ralston gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Ralston's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Ralston's 29,465-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Ralston's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.