Spirit Lake, IA
Spirit Lake, IA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Spirit Lake at the 64th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 2,804 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 Spirit Lake at the 60th percentile, close to its 64th-percentile risk score.
Spirit Lake's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Spirit Lake's buildings (79% of 2,804) 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.
Spirit Lake against the rest of the country
Within Iowa, Spirit Lake ranks higher (87th percentile) than it does nationally (64th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Spirit Lake ranks 11,471 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,758 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 129 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Spirit Lake
Spirit Lake's 64th-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
Even with 79% of Spirit Lake 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 Spirit Lake's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Spirit Lake's 11,471-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Spirit Lake's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.