Mobridge, SD
Mobridge, SD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Mobridge lands at the 82nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 2,174 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Mobridge at the 77th national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Mobridge's buildings actually sit
2,174 buildings are counted in Mobridge, and 68.5% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 4.8% in Direct exposure or the 26.6% rated Minimal.
Where Mobridge ranks
There's little gap between Mobridge's 82nd national percentile and its 82nd 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, Mobridge ranks 5,745 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,007 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 80 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Mobridge and the insurance market
Mobridge's 82nd-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
Mobridge's 68.5% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Mobridge's 5,745-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Mobridge, see the exposure-zones guide.