Porcupine, SD
Porcupine, SD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Porcupine at the 99th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 377 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Porcupine at the 99th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Porcupine's building exposure, zone by zone
377 buildings are counted in Porcupine, and 83.8% 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.
Where Porcupine ranks
Porcupine's risk sits at a similar level relative to South Dakota (100th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (99th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Porcupine ranks 390 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,730 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 2 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Porcupine
Porcupine's 99th-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
Porcupine's 83.8% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Porcupine's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 377 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Porcupine. The exposure-zones guide covers what Porcupine's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.