Parmelee, SD
Parmelee, SD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Parmelee at the 86th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 195 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Parmelee's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 85th percentile nationally.
Parmelee's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 64.6% of Parmelee's 195 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 35.4% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Parmelee compares
There's little gap between Parmelee's 86th national percentile and its 86th 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, Parmelee ranks 4,483 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,046 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 63 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Parmelee
Parmelee's 86th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Parmelee (64.6% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Parmelee's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Parmelee's 4,483-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Parmelee's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.