Chester, MT
How exposed is Chester to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Chester lands at the 6th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 630 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Chester's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 5th percentile nationally.
Chester's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Chester's buildings (96.8%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Chester against the rest of the country
Chester's risk sits at a similar level relative to Montana (1st percentile statewide) as it does nationally (6th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chester ranks 29,512 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,450 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 470 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Chester
Chester's low wildfire rating (6th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Chester's 96.8% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Chester's 29,512-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Chester, see the exposure-zones guide.