Pinnacle, MT
Pinnacle wildfire risk explained
Pinnacle's 79 buildings earn a 99th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Pinnacle at the 99th percentile, close to its 99th-percentile risk score.
Where Pinnacle's buildings actually sit
79 buildings are counted in Pinnacle, and 100% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Pinnacle compares
There's little gap between Pinnacle's 99th national percentile and its 100th percentile inside Montana, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pinnacle ranks 323 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,932 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 1 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Pinnacle and the insurance market
At the 99th percentile nationally, Pinnacle 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.
Hardening a home in Pinnacle
With 100% of Pinnacle in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Pinnacle's 99th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Pinnacle, see the exposure-zones guide.