Dewey, MT
Dewey, MT's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Dewey at the 92nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 69 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Dewey at the 87th national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Dewey's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Dewey's 69 counted buildings, 100% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Dewey against the rest of the country
Dewey scores 92nd nationally and 82nd within Montana — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dewey ranks 2,457 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,316 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 88 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Dewey and the insurance market
Dewey's 92nd-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
Dewey's 100% 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 Dewey's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 69 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Dewey. The exposure-zones guide covers what Dewey's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.