Alta, UT
Alta wildfire risk explained
Alta's 166 buildings earn a 96th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Alta at the 95th percentile, close to its 96th-percentile risk score.
Where Alta's buildings actually sit
166 buildings are counted in Alta, and 97% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Alta compares
Alta's risk sits at a similar level relative to Utah (86th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (96th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Alta ranks 1,144 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,193 by building count (1 is largest). Within Utah alone, it ranks 44 of 326 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Utah on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Alta's 96th-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.
Hardening a home in Alta
Because Direct exposure dominates in Alta (97%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Alta's 96th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Alta, see the exposure-zones guide.