Watertown, MN
Watertown wildfire risk explained
Watertown's 1,752 buildings earn a 39th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Watertown at the 36th percentile, close to its 39th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
81.6% of Watertown's 1,752 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 18.4% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Watertown against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Watertown's 39th national percentile and its 52nd percentile inside Minnesota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Watertown ranks 19,319 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,218 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 444 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Watertown's moderate wildfire rating (39th 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 Watertown
Even with 81.6% of Watertown outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,752 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Watertown. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Watertown, see the exposure-zones guide.