Fox Lake, MT
Fox Lake, MT's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Fox Lake lands at the 60th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 172 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Fox Lake at the 58th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Fox Lake's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 58.1% of Fox Lake's 172 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 41.9% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Fox Lake ranks
Inside Montana, Fox Lake sits at just the 23rd percentile even though it scores 60th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fox Lake ranks 12,766 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,946 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 365 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Fox Lake and the insurance market
Fox Lake's elevated rating (60th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Fox Lake
Fox Lake's 58.1% 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.
Where Fox Lake's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Fox Lake's 12,766-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Fox Lake's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.