Custer, MI
Custer wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Custer at the 20th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 213 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Custer at the 20th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Custer's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 56.3% of Custer's 213 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 43.7% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Custer compares
Within Michigan, Custer ranks higher (68th percentile) than it does nationally (20th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Custer ranks 25,088 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,365 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 239 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Custer and the insurance market
Custer's moderate rating (20th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Custer's 56.3% 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 Custer's 25,088-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Custer, see the exposure-zones guide.