St. Joseph, KY
St. Joseph, KY's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts St. Joseph at the 15th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 79 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 St. Joseph at the 15th percentile, close to its 15th-percentile risk score.
St. Joseph's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 91.1% of St. Joseph's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 6.3% Indirect share and far above its 2.5% Minimal share — a profile where 72 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
St. Joseph against the rest of the country
St. Joseph's risk sits at a similar level relative to Kentucky (23rd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (15th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Joseph ranks 26,910 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,924 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kentucky alone, it ranks 423 of 552 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kentucky on its state page.
St. Joseph and the insurance market
St. Joseph's low wildfire rating (15th 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. Joseph
St. Joseph's 91.1% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where St. Joseph's figures come from
St. Joseph's 15th-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. Joseph's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.