Shields, MI
Shields, MI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Shields at the 8th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 3,347 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Shields at the 9th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Shields's building exposure, zone by zone
Shields rates 66.5% Minimal exposure against just 33.6% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 3,347 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Where Shields ranks
Shields's 25th-percentile standing inside Michigan outpaces its 8th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Shields ranks 28,969 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,986 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 560 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Shields and the insurance market
Shields's low rating (8th 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
Shields's 66.5% 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 Shields's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Shields's 28,969-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Shields's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.