St. Charles, MN
St. Charles, MN's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores St. Charles at the 6th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 1,813 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks St. Charles at the 6th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
St. Charles's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 28.4% of St. Charles's 1,813 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 71.7% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
How St. Charles compares
St. Charles's risk sits at a similar level relative to Minnesota (10th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (6th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Charles ranks 29,509 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,022 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 824 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
St. Charles and the insurance market
St. Charles's low wildfire rating (6th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 71.7% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, St. Charles gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where St. Charles's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind St. Charles's 29,509-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what St. Charles's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.