Polebridge, MT
Polebridge wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Polebridge at the 98th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 45 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Polebridge at the 98th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Polebridge's buildings actually sit
Of Polebridge's 45 counted buildings, 100% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Polebridge against the rest of the country
Polebridge scores 98th nationally and 99th within Montana — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Polebridge ranks 542 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,048 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 8 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Polebridge
At the 98th percentile nationally, Polebridge 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 Polebridge
Because Direct exposure dominates in Polebridge (100%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Polebridge's 98th-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 Polebridge, see the exposure-zones guide.