Mandan, ND
Mandan wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Mandan at the 61st national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 10,096 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Mandan's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 58th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Mandan (82.5% of 10,096 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 9% sit in the Direct zone. At 10,096 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Mandan ranks
There's little gap between Mandan'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, Mandan ranks 12,459 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,587 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 102 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
Mandan and the insurance market
Mandan's high rating (61st percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Mandan's 82.5% 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 Mandan's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 10,096 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Mandan. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mandan's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.