Swaledale, IA
Swaledale wildfire risk explained
Swaledale sits at the 3rd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 125 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Swaledale at the 2nd percentile, close to its 3rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 14.4% of Swaledale's 125 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 85.6% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Swaledale against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Swaledale's 3rd national percentile and its 4th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Swaledale ranks 30,701 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,938 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 973 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
At the 3rd national percentile, Swaledale rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 85.6% of Swaledale 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.
Where Swaledale's figures come from
Swaledale's 3rd-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 Swaledale's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.