St. Elizabeth, MO
How exposed is St. Elizabeth to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts St. Elizabeth at the 68th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 248 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks St. Elizabeth at the 70th 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
Direct exposure dominates in St. Elizabeth: 71.4% of its 248 buildings, versus 28.6% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How St. Elizabeth compares
There's little gap between St. Elizabeth's 68th national percentile and its 77th percentile inside Missouri, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Elizabeth ranks 10,118 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,211 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 245 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in St. Elizabeth
St. Elizabeth's 68th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 71.4% of St. Elizabeth in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where St. Elizabeth's figures come from
St. Elizabeth's 68th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what St. Elizabeth's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.