Waterville, KS
Waterville wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Waterville lands at the 82nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 514 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Waterville at the 75th national percentile — 7 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Waterville's buildings actually sit
Indirect exposure is dominant in Waterville (92% of 514 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 8% sit in the Direct zone.
Where Waterville ranks
Waterville scores 82nd nationally and 82nd within Kansas — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Waterville ranks 5,548 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,121 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 134 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Waterville's 82nd-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.
Hardening a home in Waterville
Because 92% of Waterville's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Waterville's 5,548-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Waterville, see the exposure-zones guide.