Lignite, ND
How exposed is Lignite to wildfire?
Lignite sits at the 45th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 173 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Lignite's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 41st percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 98.3% of Lignite's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 1.7% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Lignite compares
There's little gap between Lignite's 45th national percentile and its 38th 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, Lignite ranks 17,402 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,908 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 251 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
Lignite and the insurance market
At the 45th national percentile, Lignite rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Lignite
Lignite's 98.3% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Lignite's 17,402-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Lignite, see the exposure-zones guide.