Stephenson, MI
How exposed is Stephenson to wildfire?
USFS scores Stephenson at the 13th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 569 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 Stephenson at the 13th percentile, close to its 13th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Stephenson rates 72.8% Minimal exposure against just 20.7% Direct and 6.5% Indirect — of 569 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Stephenson compares
Stephenson's 46th-percentile standing inside Michigan outpaces its 13th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Stephenson ranks 27,360 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,265 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 404 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Stephenson
Stephenson's low wildfire rating (13th 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 Stephenson
Even with 72.8% of Stephenson 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
Stephenson's 13th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Stephenson, see the exposure-zones guide.