Black Forest, CO
Black Forest wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Black Forest at the 95th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 10,229 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 Black Forest at the 95th percentile, close to its 95th-percentile risk score.
Where Black Forest's buildings actually sit
99.8% of Black Forest's 10,229 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 10,205 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 0.2% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal. At 10,229 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Black Forest ranks
There's little gap between Black Forest's 95th national percentile and its 83rd percentile inside Colorado, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Black Forest ranks 1,537 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,569 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 79 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Black Forest's very high rating (95th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Black Forest
With 99.8% of Black Forest in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 10,229 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Black Forest. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Black Forest, see the exposure-zones guide.