Strong City, KS
Strong City wildfire risk explained
Strong City sits at the 89th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 384 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Strong City at the 86th national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Strong City's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Strong City (81% of 384 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 18% sit in the Direct zone.
Where Strong City ranks
There's little gap between Strong City's 89th national percentile and its 90th percentile inside Kansas, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Strong City ranks 3,432 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,545 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 75 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Strong City and the insurance market
Strong City's 89th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Strong City's 81% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Strong City's figures come from
Strong City's 89th-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 Strong City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.