Manderson-White Horse Creek, SD
How exposed is Manderson-White Horse Creek to wildfire?
Manderson-White Horse Creek's 168 buildings earn a 98th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Manderson-White Horse Creek at the 99th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Manderson-White Horse Creek's buildings actually sit
168 buildings are counted in Manderson-White Horse Creek, and 53% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
Where Manderson-White Horse Creek ranks
Manderson-White Horse Creek scores 98th nationally and 99th within South Dakota — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Manderson-White Horse Creek ranks 641 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,114 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 5 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Manderson-White Horse Creek and the insurance market
Manderson-White Horse Creek's 98th-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
Because Direct exposure dominates in Manderson-White Horse Creek (53%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Manderson-White Horse Creek's 98th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Manderson-White Horse Creek, see the exposure-zones guide.