Mountain City, NV
Mountain City wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Mountain City lands at the 97th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 81 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Mountain City at the 98th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Mountain City's building exposure, zone by zone
81 buildings are counted in Mountain City, and 92.6% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Mountain City compares
Mountain City's 97th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 65th ranking inside Nevada does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 32 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mountain City ranks 917 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,857 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nevada alone, it ranks 44 of 123 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nevada on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Mountain City's 97th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 92.6% of Mountain City in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 81 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Mountain City. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Mountain City, see the exposure-zones guide.