St. Joseph, MO
St. Joseph, MO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts St. Joseph at the 58th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 33,793 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks St. Joseph at the 59th national percentile — 1 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
USFS classifies 72.1% of St. Joseph's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 16.9% Direct and 10.9% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 33,793 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How St. Joseph compares
St. Joseph's risk sits at a similar level relative to Missouri (50th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (58th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Joseph ranks 13,216 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 321 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 530 of 1,062 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Missouri on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
St. Joseph's elevated rating (58th 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
Even with 72.1% of St. Joseph 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.
Where St. Joseph's figures come from
St. Joseph's 58th-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 minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.