Evans, CO
How exposed is Evans to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Evans lands at the 49th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 6,527 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Evans at the 51st national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Evans's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 93% of Evans's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 7.1% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 6,527 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Evans against the rest of the country
Evans's 49th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 16th ranking inside Colorado does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 32 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Evans ranks 16,124 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,663 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 395 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Evans and the insurance market
Evans's elevated wildfire rating (49th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 93% of Evans outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Evans's figures come from
Evans's 49th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Evans's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.