Willard, KS
Willard wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Willard at the 72nd national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 45 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Willard at the 71st national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Willard's buildings actually sit
Indirect exposure is dominant in Willard (75.6% of 45 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 24.4% sit in the Direct zone.
Where Willard ranks
Willard scores 72nd nationally and 69th within Kansas — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Willard ranks 8,948 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,042 by building count (1 is largest). Within Kansas alone, it ranks 222 of 721 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Kansas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Willard
Willard's 72nd-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 75.6% of Willard's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Willard's figures come from
Willard's 72nd-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 Willard's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.