Lamar, CO
How exposed is Lamar to wildfire?
Lamar sits at the 86th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 4,257 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Lamar at the 87th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Lamar's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 90.9% of Lamar's 4,257 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 7.3% Direct and 1.8% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Lamar against the rest of the country
Inside Colorado, Lamar sits at just the 67th percentile even though it scores 86th 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, Lamar ranks 4,276 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,010 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 155 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
Lamar'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 Lamar (90.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Lamar's figures come from
Lamar's 86th-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 Lamar's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.