Michigan City, ND
How exposed is Michigan City to wildfire?
USFS scores Michigan City at the 70th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 264 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Michigan City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 66th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 65.9% of Michigan City's 264 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 16.3% Direct and 17.8% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Michigan City against the rest of the country
Compare Michigan City's two percentiles: 88th within North Dakota, only 70th nationally — a gap of 18 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Michigan City ranks 9,619 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,710 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 51 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
Michigan City and the insurance market
Michigan City's 70th-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.
Hardening a home in Michigan City
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Michigan City (65.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Michigan City's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Michigan City's 9,619-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Michigan City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.