Van Buren, AR
Van Buren, AR's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Van Buren at the 88th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 9,723 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Van Buren at the 91st national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 52.2% of Van Buren's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 16.5% Direct and 31.3% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 9,723 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Van Buren against the rest of the country
Van Buren's risk sits at a similar level relative to Arkansas (97th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (88th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Van Buren ranks 3,769 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,682 by building count (1 is largest). Within Arkansas alone, it ranks 21 of 614 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Arkansas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Van Buren's very high rating (88th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Van Buren
Van Buren's 52.2% 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.
Where Van Buren's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Van Buren's 3,769-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Van Buren's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.