Rochester, IA
How exposed is Rochester to wildfire?
USFS scores Rochester at the 62nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 121 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Rochester at the 64th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
47.1% of Rochester's 121 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 57 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 47.1% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 5.8% are Minimal.
Rochester against the rest of the country
Within Iowa, Rochester ranks higher (86th percentile) than it does nationally (62nd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Rochester ranks 12,037 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 28,106 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 149 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Rochester
Rochester's 62nd-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
With 47.1% of Rochester in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Rochester's 12,037-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Rochester, see the exposure-zones guide.