Cooke City, MT
Cooke City, MT's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Cooke City's 286 buildings earn a 97th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cooke City at the 96th percentile, close to its 97th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Cooke City: 80.1% of its 286 buildings, versus 19.9% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Where Cooke City ranks
There's little gap between Cooke City's 97th national percentile and its 95th percentile inside Montana, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cooke City ranks 915 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,011 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 26 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
Cooke City's very high rating (97th 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
Cooke City's 80.1% 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 Cooke City's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Cooke City's 915-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cooke City's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.