St. Joseph, MI
St. Joseph wildfire risk explained
USFS scores St. Joseph at the 7th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 4,206 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (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 8th percentile, close to its 7th-percentile risk score.
Where St. Joseph's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 88.6% of St. Joseph's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 4.7% Direct and 6.7% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
St. Joseph against the rest of the country
St. Joseph scores 7th nationally and 22nd within Michigan — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Joseph ranks 29,193 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,052 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 585 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
St. Joseph's low rating (7th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
St. Joseph's 88.6% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,206 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for St. Joseph. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond St. Joseph, see the exposure-zones guide.