Wood Lake, NE
Wood Lake wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Wood Lake lands at the 87th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 89 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Wood Lake at the 86th percentile, close to its 87th-percentile risk score.
Wood Lake's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Wood Lake: 73% of its 89 buildings, versus 27% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Wood Lake against the rest of the country
Wood Lake's risk sits at a similar level relative to Nebraska (95th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (87th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wood Lake ranks 4,040 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,542 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nebraska alone, it ranks 30 of 583 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nebraska on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 87th percentile nationally, Wood Lake carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Wood Lake
Wood Lake's 73% 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 Wood Lake's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Wood Lake's 4,040-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Wood Lake's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.