Belgrade, MT
Belgrade wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Belgrade at the 47th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 3,855 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Belgrade at the 49th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Belgrade's buildings actually sit
Only 12.5% of Belgrade's 3,855 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 87.5% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Belgrade against the rest of the country
Inside Montana, Belgrade sits at just the 11th percentile even though it scores 47th 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, Belgrade ranks 16,735 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,379 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 425 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Belgrade's elevated wildfire rating (47th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 87.5% of Belgrade 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 3,855 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Belgrade. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Belgrade, see the exposure-zones guide.