Smolan, KS
How exposed is Smolan to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Smolan at the 23rd national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 162 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Smolan at the 19th national percentile — 4 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
USFS classifies 92% of Smolan's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 8% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Smolan compares
Inside Kansas, Smolan sits at just the 4th percentile even though it scores 23rd nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Smolan ranks 24,327 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,334 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 692 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Smolan and the insurance market
Smolan's moderate wildfire rating (23rd 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
Even with 92% of Smolan 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.
Where Smolan's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 162 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Smolan. The exposure-zones guide covers what Smolan's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.