Whitewater, IN
How exposed is Whitewater to wildfire?
Whitewater's 64 buildings earn a 5th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Whitewater's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 5th percentile nationally.
Where Whitewater's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 90.6% of Whitewater's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 0% Indirect share and far above its 9.4% Minimal share — a profile where 58 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Whitewater against the rest of the country
Compare Whitewater's two percentiles: 37th within Indiana, only 5th nationally — a gap of 32 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Whitewater ranks 29,879 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,500 by building count (1 is largest). Within Indiana alone, it ranks 612 of 967 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Indiana on its state page.
Whitewater and the insurance market
Whitewater's low wildfire rating (5th 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
Whitewater's 90.6% 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.
Where Whitewater's figures come from
Whitewater's 5th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Whitewater's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.