Cascade, MT
How exposed is Cascade to wildfire?
USFS scores Cascade at the 78th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 500 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cascade at the 76th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Cascade's buildings actually sit
500 buildings are counted in Cascade, and 94.2% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 5.8% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
How Cascade compares
Cascade's 78th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 49th ranking inside Montana does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 28 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cascade ranks 7,091 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,358 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 242 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Cascade and the insurance market
At the 78th percentile nationally, Cascade carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 94.2% of Cascade'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 Cascade's figures come from
Cascade's 78th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cascade's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.