Leal, ND
Leal wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Leal at the 61st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 64 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Leal at the 60th percentile, close to its 61st-percentile risk score.
Where Leal's buildings actually sit
Most of Leal's buildings (89.1%) 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 Leal compares
There's little gap between Leal's 61st national percentile and its 75th percentile inside North Dakota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Leal ranks 12,422 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,519 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 101 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
Leal and the insurance market
At the 61st percentile nationally, Leal carries the 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.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Leal (89.1% 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 64 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Leal. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Leal, see the exposure-zones guide.