Millerdale Colony, SD
Millerdale Colony, SD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Millerdale Colony lands at the 66th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 58 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Millerdale Colony's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 60th percentile nationally.
Millerdale Colony's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 84.5% of Millerdale Colony's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 15.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Millerdale Colony ranks
There's little gap between Millerdale Colony's 66th national percentile and its 59th percentile inside South Dakota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Millerdale Colony ranks 10,758 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,727 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 182 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Millerdale Colony and the insurance market
Millerdale Colony's 66th-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
With 84.5% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Millerdale Colony gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Millerdale Colony's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Millerdale Colony's 10,758-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Millerdale Colony's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.