Norris, MT
How exposed is Norris to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Norris at the 84th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 79 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Norris's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 81st percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 100% of Norris's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 0% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 79 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Norris against the rest of the country
Norris ranks lower within Montana (60th percentile statewide) than its 84th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Norris ranks 5,141 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,931 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 191 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Norris and the insurance market
Norris's 84th-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.
Hardening a home in Norris
Norris's 100% 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Norris's 5,141-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Norris, see the exposure-zones guide.