St. Louis, MO
St. Louis wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts St. Louis at the 31st national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 125,946 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. Louis at the 33rd percentile, close to its 31st-percentile risk score.
Where St. Louis's buildings actually sit
Most of St. Louis's buildings (99.7% of 125,946) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 125,946 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. Louis compares
Inside Missouri, St. Louis sits at just the 10th percentile even though it scores 31st nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Louis ranks 21,741 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 49 by building count (1 is largest). Within Missouri alone, it ranks 958 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
At the 31st national percentile, St. Louis rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 99.7% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, St. Louis gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 125,946 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for St. Louis. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond St. Louis, see the exposure-zones guide.