Allen, SD
Allen wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Allen at the 98th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 132 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Allen at the 97th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Allen's buildings actually sit
Of Allen's 132 counted buildings, 65.2% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Allen compares
Allen's risk sits at a similar level relative to South Dakota (99th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (98th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Allen ranks 640 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,642 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 4 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Allen
Allen's 98th-percentile, very 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Allen (65.2%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Allen's figures come from
Allen's 98th-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 Allen's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.