Dudley, SD
Dudley wildfire risk explained
Dudley's 51 buildings earn a 88th-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 Dudley at the 88th percentile, close to its 88th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Dudley (54.9% of 51 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 45.1% sit in the Direct zone.
How Dudley compares
Dudley scores 88th nationally and 89th within South Dakota — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dudley ranks 3,888 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,913 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 48 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Dudley and the insurance market
Dudley's 88th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Dudley's 54.9% 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
Dudley's 88th-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 Dudley, see the exposure-zones guide.