Whitewater, KS
Whitewater, KS's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Whitewater sits at the 42nd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 423 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (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 35th percentile nationally.
Where Whitewater's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 91.7% of Whitewater's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 8.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Whitewater ranks
Inside Kansas, Whitewater sits at just the 18th percentile even though it scores 42nd nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Whitewater ranks 18,337 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,778 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 594 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Whitewater and the insurance market
Whitewater's elevated wildfire rating (42nd 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 91.7% 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 423 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Whitewater. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Whitewater, see the exposure-zones guide.