Neihart, MT
Neihart wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Neihart at the 93rd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 200 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Neihart at the 88th percentile, close to its 93rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
72% of Neihart's 200 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 144 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 28% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Neihart against the rest of the country
Neihart scores 93rd nationally and 83rd within Montana — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Neihart ranks 2,367 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,846 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 81 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Neihart's 93rd-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
Neihart's 72% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Neihart's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Neihart's 2,367-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Neihart's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.