Urbandale, IA
Urbandale wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Urbandale lands at the 25th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 16,646 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Urbandale at the 27th percentile, close to its 25th-percentile risk score.
Where Urbandale's buildings actually sit
Only 10.6% of Urbandale's 16,646 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 89.4% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 16,646 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Urbandale ranks
Urbandale scores 25th nationally and 39th within Iowa — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Urbandale ranks 23,631 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 870 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 627 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Urbandale
At the 25th national percentile, Urbandale rates moderate 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 Urbandale
With 89.4% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Urbandale 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
Urbandale's 25th-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 Urbandale, see the exposure-zones guide.