Philipsburg, MT
Philipsburg wildfire risk explained
Philipsburg sits at the 93rd 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 781 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Philipsburg at the 92nd national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Philipsburg's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 76.1% of Philipsburg's 781 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 23.9% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Philipsburg compares
There's little gap between Philipsburg's 93rd national percentile and its 84th percentile inside Montana, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Philipsburg ranks 2,174 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,804 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 76 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Philipsburg and the insurance market
At the 93rd percentile nationally, Philipsburg carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 76.1% of Philipsburg'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.
More on how this number was built
Philipsburg's 93rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Philipsburg, see the exposure-zones guide.