Horse Creek, SD
Horse Creek wildfire risk explained
Horse Creek's 47 buildings earn a 85th-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.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Horse Creek at the 84th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Horse Creek's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Horse Creek: 100% of its 47 buildings, versus 0% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Where Horse Creek ranks
Horse Creek scores 85th nationally and 86th 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, Horse Creek ranks 4,676 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,009 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 64 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 85th percentile nationally, Horse Creek carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Horse Creek
Horse Creek'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.
More on how this number was built
Horse Creek's 85th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Horse Creek, see the exposure-zones guide.