Stone City, IA
Stone City wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Stone City at the 59th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 139 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Stone City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 61st percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Stone City: 93.5% of its 139 buildings, versus 6.5% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Stone City against the rest of the country
Compare Stone City's two percentiles: 82nd within Iowa, only 59th nationally — a gap of 23 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Stone City ranks 13,076 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,324 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 186 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Stone City's elevated wildfire rating (59th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Stone City's 93.5% 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 Stone City's figures come from
Stone City's 59th-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 Stone City's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.