St. John, KS
St. John wildfire risk explained
St. John's 1,030 buildings earn a 75th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts St. John at the 67th percentile, close to its 75th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
68.6% of St. John's 1,030 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 7.7% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
St. John against the rest of the country
St. John's risk sits at a similar level relative to Kansas (72nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (75th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. John ranks 7,815 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,721 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 199 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in St. John
St. John's 75th-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 68.6% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind St. John's 7,815-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond St. John, see the exposure-zones guide.