Arborlook
Risk & Response
by Arborlook Insights

Mills County, IA

Community risk profile | NRI Score: 66.2 Relatively High

14,568
Population
11
Departments
16
Stations
5
Census Tracts

Natural Hazard Loss Profile

Expected annual loss across the 18 natural hazards in FEMA's National Risk Index. Life safety is expressed in fatality-equivalents, combining expected deaths and injuries. Property loss counts building damage only, separate from agriculture.

Natural Hazard Life Safety
0.20
expected fatality-equivalents per year, natural hazards only
44th highest of 99
Life Safety per 100k
1.39
natural hazard fatality-equivalents per 100,000 residents
38th highest of 99
Natural Hazard Property Loss
$6.8M
expected building loss per year, natural hazards only
46th highest of 99
Property Loss per Resident
$469
natural hazard building loss per resident per year
35th highest of 99

These figures cover natural hazards only. Structure fire, EMS, and motor vehicle incidents are not included in the National Risk Index and are not counted here, so this is not an all-cause life safety measure. For Mills County, the largest single contributor is Tornado, 45% of the life-safety total.

Mills County carries an expected under 1 natural hazard fatality-equivalents and $6.8M in building loss per year. Rank chips compare the 99 Iowa counties. Nationally, Mills County ranks 1944th of 3,222 U.S. counties for life-safety loss, 1152nd for life safety per 100k residents, 1933rd for property loss, and 963rd for property loss per resident. Computed from census tract data covering every resident, independent of fire department boundaries.

Add fire mortality, cause, and loss

Natural hazard exposure is one half of the picture. The other half is what your departments run on: fire deaths and injuries, cause of ignition, dollar loss per incident. That comes from NERIS incident reporting, and it grows as departments serving Mills County enroll. Our Regional tier brings it together across your jurisdiction, with participating departments, alongside response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.

Talk to us about Mills County See what a department sees

What Drives the Loss

64%
26%
10%
Property (buildings): $6.8M (64.3%)
Life safety: $2.8M (26.0%)
Agriculture: $1.0M (9.7%)

Total expected annual loss: $10,624,375 per year. Life safety is shown here in dollars, at FEMA's $13.7M value of statistical life, so the three shares sum to the total.

Agriculture is 10% of expected annual loss in Mills County, so total loss overstates property loss here. The property figure above counts building loss only.

Hazards Ranked Two Ways

The hazard that threatens people is often not the hazard that destroys buildings. Both columns cover the same 18 hazards over the same year.

By life-safety loss ($/yr)

Tornado
$1.2M
Cold Wave
$497K
Heat Wave
$350K
Strong Wind
$302K
Hail
$245K
Lightning
$59K

By property loss ($/yr)

Inland Flooding
$4.8M
Tornado
$1.1M
Hail
$491K
Strong Wind
$209K
Ice Storm
$75K
Wildfire
$73K

Census Tract Risk Map

Shaded by quintile across the census tracts in Mills County. Gray tracts have no modeled loss or no resident population. Per-resident figures on this map use the National Risk Index 2020 tract population.

Fire Service Profile

9%
18%
55%
18%
Career: 9% (1)
Combination: 18% (2)
Volunteer: 55% (6)
Unreported: 18% (2)
Residents per Station
910
census population per registered station
Stations per 100k
109.8
registered stations per 100,000 residents

Department composition covers the 11 departments registered in NERIS Public for Mills County, IA. Departments that have not registered are not counted. Station coverage divides census population by registered stations; department service areas overlap, so their populations are not summed.

Department Rankings

Fire and EMS departments serving Mills County. Click column headers to sort.

NRI Rating is from FEMA's National Risk Index, which measures community risk across 18 natural hazards using expected annual losses, social vulnerability, and community resilience. Life-Safety Loss uses FEMA's Value of Statistical Life ($13.7M per expected fatality) to estimate annual risk to human life.

Department boundaries and station counts are self-reported through NERIS Public and may not reflect current service areas. Population and Life-Safety Loss reflect each department's full jurisdiction. County-level risk metrics are computed from census tract data and are not affected by boundary accuracy. See full methodology.

Showing 11 departments
Department Est. Population Life-Safety Loss NRI Rating Stations
Council Bluffs Fire Department 68,949 $13.2M Relatively Moderate 5
Lewis Township Fire and Rescue 15,342 $3.1M Relatively High 1
Lamotte Community Fire Department Inc. 16,411 $2.4M Relatively High 1
Glenwood Fire Department 11,651 $2.2M Relatively High 1
Malvern Volunteer Fire Department 8,670 $1.6M Relatively High 2
Silver City Volunteer Fire Department 6,964 $1.3M Relatively High 1
Henderson Community Fire Association 4,785 $1.3M Relatively High 1
Oak Township Fire And Rescue 4,047 $746.1K Relatively High 1
Emerson Volunteer Fire Department 2,917 $524.4K Relatively High 1
Hastings Volunteer Fire Department 2,917 $524.4K Relatively High 1
Tabor Volunteer Fire Department 1,706 $348.4K Relatively High 1
No departments match your search.

Risk Snapshot

8.2%
Poverty Rate
20.1%
Age 65+
13.6%
Disability Rate
2.7%
Uninsured
61.2%
Pre-1980 Housing
3.7%
Mobile Homes
12.1%
Vacancy Rate
0.6%
Wood Heat
$90,685
Median HH Income

FEMA Disaster Declarations

5
Last 10 Years
12
Last 25 Years
Flood
Most Frequent

Response-level intelligence for your region

Our Regional tier gives county fire authorities and state fire marshals rollup dashboards across all departments in your jurisdiction: response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.

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