Ouray, CO
Ouray, CO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Ouray sits at the 87th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 690 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Ouray at the 79th percentile, close to its 87th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Ouray's buildings (63.9%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Ouray compares
Inside Colorado, Ouray sits at just the 68th percentile even though it scores 87th 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, Ouray ranks 4,187 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,757 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 152 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Ouray and the insurance market
Ouray's very high rating (87th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 63.9% of Ouray's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Ouray's figures come from
Ouray's 87th-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 Ouray's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.