Kiowa, CO
Kiowa, CO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Kiowa lands at the 89th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 393 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Kiowa's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 88th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Kiowa's buildings (60.6%) 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.
Where Kiowa ranks
Kiowa's 89th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 72nd ranking inside Colorado does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 17 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Kiowa ranks 3,583 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,348 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 134 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Kiowa and the insurance market
Kiowa's 89th-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.
Hardening a home in Kiowa
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Kiowa (60.6% 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 393 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Kiowa. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Kiowa, see the exposure-zones guide.