New Elm Spring Colony, SD
New Elm Spring Colony wildfire risk explained
USFS scores New Elm Spring Colony at the 73rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 57 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 New Elm Spring Colony at the 67th percentile, close to its 73rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 89.5% of New Elm Spring Colony's 57 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 10.5% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where New Elm Spring Colony ranks
New Elm Spring Colony scores 73rd nationally and 71st within South 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, New Elm Spring Colony ranks 8,645 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,753 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 129 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
New Elm Spring Colony and the insurance market
New Elm Spring Colony's high rating (73rd 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
New Elm Spring Colony's 89.5% 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.
Where New Elm Spring Colony's figures come from
New Elm Spring Colony's 73rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what New Elm Spring Colony's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.