Topeka, KS
Topeka, KS's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Topeka at the 65th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 57,725 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Topeka at the 66th percentile, close to its 65th-percentile risk score.
Where Topeka's buildings actually sit
Most of Topeka's buildings (86.9% of 57,725) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 57,725 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Topeka compares
Topeka's risk sits at a similar level relative to Kansas (59th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (65th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Topeka ranks 11,088 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 141 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 294 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Topeka and the insurance market
At the 65th percentile nationally, Topeka carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Topeka
Topeka's 86.9% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Topeka's 11,088-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Topeka, see the exposure-zones guide.