Piedmont, SD
Piedmont wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Piedmont at the 89th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 641 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Piedmont at the 90th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Piedmont's buildings actually sit
Indirect exposure is dominant in Piedmont (51.3% of 641 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 48.7% sit in the Direct zone.
Piedmont against the rest of the country
Piedmont's risk sits at a similar level relative to South Dakota (92nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (89th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Piedmont ranks 3,417 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,316 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 39 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Piedmont's 89th-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
Because 51.3% of Piedmont'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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 641 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Piedmont. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Piedmont, see the exposure-zones guide.