St. John, IN
St. John wildfire risk explained
USFS scores St. John at the 52nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 7,597 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. John at the 55th national percentile — 3 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
88.4% of St. John's 7,597 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 11.7% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 7,597 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
St. John against the rest of the country
St. John's 98th-percentile standing inside Indiana outpaces its 52nd national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. John ranks 15,061 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,252 by building count (1 is largest). Within Indiana alone, it ranks 23 of 967 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Indiana on its state page.
St. John and the insurance market
St. John's elevated wildfire rating (52nd 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.
Hardening a home in St. John
Even with 88.4% of St. John 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 7,597 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for St. John. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond St. John, see the exposure-zones guide.