Oldtown, ID
Oldtown wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Oldtown lands at the 49th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 230 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 Oldtown at the 48th percentile, close to its 49th-percentile risk score.
Oldtown's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 70.4% of Oldtown's 230 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 28.7% Direct and 0.9% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Oldtown against the rest of the country
Inside Idaho, Oldtown sits at just the 16th percentile even though it scores 49th 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, Oldtown ranks 16,125 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,784 by building count (1 is largest). Within Idaho alone, it ranks 195 of 232 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Idaho on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Oldtown
Oldtown's elevated wildfire rating (49th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Oldtown (70.4% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 230 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Oldtown. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Oldtown, see the exposure-zones guide.