Big Stone City, SD
Big Stone City wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Big Stone City at the 57th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 466 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Big Stone City at the 53rd percentile, close to its 57th-percentile risk score.
Big Stone City's building exposure, zone by zone
58.2% of Big Stone City's 466 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 37.3% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Where Big Stone City ranks
Big Stone City's 57th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 42nd ranking inside South Dakota does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 15 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Big Stone City ranks 13,474 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,970 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 254 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Big Stone City
At the 57th national percentile, Big Stone City rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 58.2% of Big Stone City 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Big Stone City's 13,474-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Big Stone City, see the exposure-zones guide.