Remsen, IA
How exposed is Remsen to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Remsen lands at the 9th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 972 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Remsen at the 8th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Remsen's buildings actually sit
Only 13.5% of Remsen's 972 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.
Remsen against the rest of the country
Remsen scores 9th nationally and 18th 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, Remsen ranks 28,741 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,132 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 836 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
Remsen's low wildfire rating (9th 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
Remsen's 86.5% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Remsen's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Remsen's 28,741-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Remsen's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.