Whitten, IA
Whitten wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Whitten at the 39th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 98 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Whitten at the 40th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 23.5% of Whitten's 98 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 76.5% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Whitten ranks
Whitten scores 39th nationally and 54th within Iowa — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Whitten ranks 19,094 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,121 by building count (1 is largest). Within Iowa alone, it ranks 467 of 1,017 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Iowa on its state page.
Whitten and the insurance market
At the 39th national percentile, Whitten rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Whitten's 76.5% 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 Whitten's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 98 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Whitten. The exposure-zones guide covers what Whitten's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.