Sparta, MO
How exposed is Sparta to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Sparta lands at the 77th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 904 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Sparta at the 79th 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
Most of Sparta's buildings (73.1%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Sparta compares
Within Missouri, Sparta ranks higher (93rd percentile) than it does nationally (77th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sparta ranks 7,345 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,685 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 74 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
Sparta and the insurance market
Sparta's 77th-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
Because 73.1% of Sparta's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Sparta's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 904 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Sparta. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sparta's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.