Aurora Center, SD
Aurora Center, SD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Aurora Center at the 59th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 21 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Aurora Center at the 58th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Aurora Center's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 100% of Aurora Center's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 0% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 21 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most. This is a small settlement by building count — 21 total — so these shares describe a handful of structures, not a statistical average across thousands.
Where Aurora Center ranks
There's little gap between Aurora Center's 59th national percentile and its 44th percentile inside South Dakota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Aurora Center ranks 13,032 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,458 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 245 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Aurora Center
Aurora Center's elevated rating (59th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Aurora Center
Because Direct exposure dominates in Aurora Center (100%), 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Aurora Center's 13,032-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. At 21 buildings, Aurora Center is close to the size where USFS's data gets thin — the data-quality guide explains why 517 places nationally get no score at all.