Malad City, ID
Malad City, ID's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Malad City at the 92nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 1,352 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Malad City at the 90th national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Malad City's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Malad City's buildings (56.6%) 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.
How Malad City compares
Malad City's 92nd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 70th ranking inside Idaho does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 22 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Malad City ranks 2,488 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,818 by building count (1 is largest). Within Idaho alone, it ranks 70 of 232 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Idaho on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Malad City
Malad City's 92nd-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Malad City's 56.6% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Malad City's figures come from
Malad City's 92nd-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 Malad City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.