Rifle, CO
Rifle, CO's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Rifle lands at the 79th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 3,274 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Rifle's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 74th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
3,274 buildings are counted in Rifle, and 73.9% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 12.9% in Direct exposure or the 13.3% rated Minimal.
Rifle against the rest of the country
Inside Colorado, Rifle sits at just the 53rd percentile even though it scores 79th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Rifle ranks 6,550 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,076 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 223 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Rifle and the insurance market
Rifle's 79th-percentile, 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
Because 73.9% of Rifle'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 3,274 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Rifle. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Rifle, see the exposure-zones guide.