Huntley, MT
Huntley wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Huntley at the 86th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 387 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Huntley's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 87th percentile nationally.
Where Huntley's buildings actually sit
Most of Huntley's buildings (49.9%) 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.
Where Huntley ranks
Huntley's 86th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 65th ranking inside Montana does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 21 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Huntley ranks 4,444 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,469 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 169 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Huntley and the insurance market
Huntley's 86th-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
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Huntley (49.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 387 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Huntley. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Huntley, see the exposure-zones guide.