Missoula, MT
How exposed is Missoula to wildfire?
USFS scores Missoula at the 92nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 28,253 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Missoula at the 91st percentile, close to its 92nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
28,253 buildings are counted in Missoula, and 69.7% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 7.7% in Direct exposure or the 22.5% rated Minimal. At 28,253 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Missoula ranks
Missoula's risk sits at a similar level relative to Montana (81st percentile statewide) as it does nationally (92nd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Missoula ranks 2,490 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 426 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 89 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Missoula
Missoula's very high rating (92nd 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.
Hardening a home in Missoula
Missoula's 69.7% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 28,253 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Missoula. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Missoula, see the exposure-zones guide.