Carson, ND
Carson wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Carson at the 51st national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 496 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Carson at the 49th national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 57.7% of Carson's 496 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 39.7% Direct and 2.6% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Carson against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Carson's 51st national percentile and its 55th percentile inside North Dakota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Carson ranks 15,355 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,428 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 180 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
Carson and the insurance market
At the 51st national percentile, Carson 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
Because 57.7% of Carson'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.
More on how this number was built
Carson's 51st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Carson, see the exposure-zones guide.