Central City, SD
How exposed is Central City to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Central City at the 80th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 100 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Central City at the 79th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Central City's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Central City's 100 counted buildings, 69% 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.
Central City against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Central City's 80th national percentile and its 80th percentile inside South Dakota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Central City ranks 6,216 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,053 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 89 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Central City
Central City's very high rating (80th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Central City's 69% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Central City's figures come from
Central City's 80th-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 Central City's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.