South St. Paul, MN
How exposed is South St. Paul to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts South St. Paul at the 31st national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 10,137 actual buildings. (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 St. Paul at the 31st percentile, close to its 31st-percentile risk score.
South St. Paul's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of South St. Paul's buildings (98% of 10,137) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 10,137 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where South St. Paul ranks
There's little gap between South St. Paul's 31st national percentile and its 38th percentile inside Minnesota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, South St. Paul ranks 21,617 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,583 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 570 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
South St. Paul and the insurance market
South St. Paul's moderate wildfire rating (31st 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 98% of South St. Paul 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 South St. Paul's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 10,137 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for South St. Paul. The exposure-zones guide covers what South St. Paul's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.