Story City, IA
How exposed is Story City to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Story City at the 14th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 1,749 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Story City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 14th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 86.5% of Story City's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 13.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Story City against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Story City's 14th national percentile and its 24th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Story City ranks 27,005 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,229 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 772 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Story City and the insurance market
Story City's low rating (14th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Story City
With 86.5% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Story City 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 1,749 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Story City. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Story City, see the exposure-zones guide.