Niwot, CO
Niwot, CO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Niwot lands at the 82nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 1,753 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 Niwot at the 85th percentile, close to its 82nd-percentile risk score.
Niwot's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 45.4% of Niwot's 1,753 buildings carry Direct exposure and 3.4% carry Indirect; the remaining 51.3% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Niwot against the rest of the country
Inside Colorado, Niwot sits at just the 58th percentile even though it scores 82nd nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Niwot ranks 5,729 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,211 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 201 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Niwot and the insurance market
Niwot's very high rating (82nd 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
With 51.3% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Niwot gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Niwot's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,753 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Niwot. The exposure-zones guide covers what Niwot's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.