Boulder Canyon, SD
Boulder Canyon, SD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Boulder Canyon at the 83rd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 515 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Boulder Canyon at the 83rd percentile, close to its 83rd-percentile risk score.
Where Boulder Canyon's buildings actually sit
Of Boulder Canyon's 515 counted buildings, 99.2% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Boulder Canyon against the rest of the country
Boulder Canyon's risk sits at a similar level relative to South Dakota (83rd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (83rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Boulder Canyon ranks 5,395 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,110 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 73 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Boulder Canyon's 83rd-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Hardening a home in Boulder Canyon
Because Direct exposure dominates in Boulder Canyon (99.2%), 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 515 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Boulder Canyon. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Boulder Canyon, see the exposure-zones guide.