South Bend, NE
How exposed is South Bend to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, South Bend lands at the 75th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 83 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts South Bend at the 73rd percentile, close to its 75th-percentile risk score.
South Bend's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 69.9% of South Bend's 83 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 30.1% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
South Bend against the rest of the country
There's little gap between South Bend's 75th national percentile and its 78th percentile inside Nebraska, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, South Bend ranks 7,919 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,770 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 130 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
South Bend and the insurance market
At the 75th percentile nationally, South Bend carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
South Bend's 69.9% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where South Bend's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind South Bend's 7,919-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what South Bend's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.