Thompson, IA
How exposed is Thompson to wildfire?
Thompson sits at the 4th 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 414 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 Thompson at the 4th percentile, close to its 4th-percentile risk score.
Where Thompson's buildings actually sit
76.8% of Thompson's 414 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 23.2% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
How Thompson compares
There's little gap between Thompson's 4th national percentile and its 9th percentile inside Iowa, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Thompson ranks 30,163 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,944 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 924 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 4th national percentile, Thompson rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Thompson
With 76.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Thompson 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Thompson's 30,163-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Thompson, see the exposure-zones guide.