Surprise, NE
Surprise, NE's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Surprise at the 19th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 58 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Surprise at the 15th national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Surprise's buildings actually sit
56.9% of Surprise's 58 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 43.1% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Where Surprise ranks
Surprise's risk sits at a similar level relative to Nebraska (9th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (19th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Surprise ranks 25,501 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,718 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 529 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Surprise's low rating (19th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Surprise's 56.9% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Surprise's 19th-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 Surprise, see the exposure-zones guide.