Wausau, WI
Wausau, WI's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Wausau lands at the 24th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 17,243 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Wausau at the 24th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Wausau's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Wausau's buildings (44.6% of 17,243) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 17,243 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Wausau compares
Compare Wausau's two percentiles: 45th within Wisconsin, only 24th nationally — a gap of 21 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wausau ranks 24,003 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 835 by building count (1 is largest). Within Wisconsin alone, it ranks 448 of 808 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Wisconsin on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Wausau's moderate wildfire rating (24th 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 Wausau
Wausau's 44.6% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 17,243 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Wausau. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Wausau, see the exposure-zones guide.