Vandercook Lake, MI
Vandercook Lake, MI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Vandercook Lake at the 19th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 2,546 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Vandercook Lake at the 20th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Vandercook Lake's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Vandercook Lake's buildings (59.7%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Vandercook Lake compares
Vandercook Lake's 64th-percentile standing inside Michigan outpaces its 19th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Vandercook Lake ranks 25,467 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,211 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 269 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Vandercook Lake's low wildfire rating (19th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Hardening a home in Vandercook Lake
Vandercook Lake's 59.7% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Vandercook Lake's 19th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Vandercook Lake, see the exposure-zones guide.