Dakota, MN
Dakota wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Dakota at the 33rd national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 226 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Dakota at the 33rd percentile, close to its 33rd-percentile risk score.
Dakota's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 60.6% of Dakota's 226 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 38.5% Direct and 0.9% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Dakota against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Dakota's 33rd national percentile and its 39th percentile inside Minnesota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dakota ranks 21,273 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,918 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 555 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Dakota and the insurance market
Dakota's moderate rating (33rd 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
Dakota's 60.6% 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
Dakota's 33rd-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 Dakota, see the exposure-zones guide.