Columbia Falls, MT
How exposed is Columbia Falls to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Columbia Falls at the 81st national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 2,337 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Columbia Falls at the 82nd national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Columbia Falls's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 85.4% of Columbia Falls's 2,337 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 14.6% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Columbia Falls against the rest of the country
Columbia Falls's 81st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 55th ranking inside Montana does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 26 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Columbia Falls ranks 6,052 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,631 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 216 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Columbia Falls's 81st-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Columbia Falls's 85.4% 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
Columbia Falls's 81st-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 Columbia Falls, see the exposure-zones guide.