Grand Lake, CO
Grand Lake wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Grand Lake at the 62nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 932 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Grand Lake's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 59th percentile nationally.
Where Grand Lake's buildings actually sit
Most of Grand Lake's buildings (50.6%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Grand Lake compares
Inside Colorado, Grand Lake sits at just the 30th percentile even though it scores 62nd 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, Grand Lake ranks 11,905 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,451 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 332 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Grand Lake's high rating (62nd percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 50.6% of Grand Lake's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Grand Lake's figures come from
Grand Lake's 62nd-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 Grand Lake's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.