Alexandria, SD
Alexandria wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Alexandria at the 54th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 490 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Alexandria at the 52nd percentile, close to its 54th-percentile risk score.
Where Alexandria's buildings actually sit
Only 27.4% of Alexandria's 490 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 72.7% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Alexandria ranks
Inside South Dakota, Alexandria sits at just the 36th percentile even though it scores 54th 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, Alexandria ranks 14,447 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,539 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 281 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 54th national percentile, Alexandria rates elevated 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
Alexandria's 72.7% 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
Alexandria's 54th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Alexandria, see the exposure-zones guide.