Ault, CO
Ault wildfire risk explained
Ault sits at the 33rd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 881 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Ault at the 32nd percentile, close to its 33rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 90% of Ault's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 10% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Ault compares
Ault's 33rd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 5th ranking inside Colorado does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 28 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ault ranks 21,010 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,894 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 448 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Ault and the insurance market
Ault's moderate wildfire rating (33rd percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 90% of Ault outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Ault's figures come from
Ault's 33rd-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 Ault's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.