Bruneau, ID
Bruneau wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Bruneau lands at the 99th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 144 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Bruneau at the 99th percentile, close to its 99th-percentile risk score.
Bruneau's building exposure, zone by zone
144 buildings are counted in Bruneau, and 73.6% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 26.4% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Bruneau against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Bruneau's 99th national percentile and its 94th percentile inside Idaho, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bruneau ranks 444 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,116 by building count (1 is largest). Within Idaho alone, it ranks 12 of 232 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Idaho on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Bruneau's 99th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 73.6% of Bruneau's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Bruneau's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 144 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Bruneau. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bruneau's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.