North Sioux City, SD
North Sioux City, SD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
North Sioux City's 1,328 buildings earn a 90th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, North Sioux City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 88th percentile nationally.
Where North Sioux City's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 66% of North Sioux City's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 7.6% Direct and 26.4% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How North Sioux City compares
There's little gap between North Sioux City's 90th national percentile and its 93rd percentile inside South Dakota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, North Sioux City ranks 3,320 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,945 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 32 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in North Sioux City
North Sioux City's 90th-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
With 66% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, North Sioux City gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind North Sioux City's 3,320-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond North Sioux City, see the exposure-zones guide.