Montpelier, ND
Montpelier, ND's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Montpelier lands at the 61st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 93 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Montpelier at the 59th percentile, close to its 61st-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Montpelier (77.4% of 93 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 22.6% sit in the Direct zone.
How Montpelier compares
Montpelier scores 61st nationally and 75th within North Dakota — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Montpelier ranks 12,398 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,370 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 100 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Montpelier
Montpelier's high rating (61st 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Montpelier's 77.4% 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 Montpelier's 12,398-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Montpelier, see the exposure-zones guide.