Verdel, NE
Verdel, NE's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Verdel at the 81st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 82 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Verdel at the 78th national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Verdel's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Verdel: 54.9% of its 82 buildings, versus 45.1% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Where Verdel ranks
Verdel scores 81st nationally and 88th within Nebraska — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Verdel ranks 5,987 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,812 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 72 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Verdel
Verdel's 81st-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Verdel's 54.9% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Verdel's 81st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Verdel, see the exposure-zones guide.