Rushmore, MN
How exposed is Rushmore to wildfire?
USFS scores Rushmore at the 3rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 246 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Rushmore at the 2nd percentile, close to its 3rd-percentile risk score.
Where Rushmore's buildings actually sit
Only 27.2% of Rushmore's 246 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 72.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Rushmore ranks
Rushmore's risk sits at a similar level relative to Minnesota (3rd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (3rd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Rushmore ranks 30,744 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,272 by building count (1 is largest). Within Minnesota alone, it ranks 885 of 914 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Minnesota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Rushmore
Rushmore's low wildfire rating (3rd percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Rushmore's 72.8% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Rushmore's 3rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Rushmore, see the exposure-zones guide.