McAllister, MT
McAllister wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts McAllister at the 79th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 255 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, McAllister's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 77th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 99.2% of McAllister's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 0.4% Indirect share and far above its 0.4% Minimal share — a profile where 253 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Where McAllister ranks
Inside Montana, McAllister sits at just the 51st percentile even though it scores 79th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, McAllister ranks 6,689 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,984 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 236 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
McAllister and the insurance market
McAllister's 79th-percentile, 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 McAllister (99.2%), 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind McAllister's 6,689-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond McAllister, see the exposure-zones guide.