Wells, MN
How exposed is Wells to wildfire?
Wells's 1,569 buildings earn a 3rd-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Wells at the 3rd national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Wells rates 89.1% Minimal exposure against just 10.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 1,569 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Where Wells ranks
There's little gap between Wells's 3rd national percentile and its 4th percentile inside Minnesota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wells ranks 30,612 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,889 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 876 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Wells and the insurance market
Wells's low wildfire rating (3rd 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Wells's 89.1% 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.
Where Wells's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,569 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Wells. The exposure-zones guide covers what Wells's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.