Ruso, ND
How exposed is Ruso to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Ruso lands at the 43rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 14 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Ruso at the 41st percentile, close to its 43rd-percentile risk score.
Ruso's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Ruso's 14 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. This is a small settlement by building count — 14 total — so these shares describe a handful of structures, not a statistical average across thousands.
Ruso against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Ruso's 43rd national percentile and its 32nd percentile inside North Dakota, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ruso ranks 18,036 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,496 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 274 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Ruso
Ruso's elevated wildfire rating (43rd 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Ruso's 100% 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 Ruso's figures come from
Ruso's 43rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. Small places like Ruso (14 buildings) are exactly where USFS's underlying data gets sparsest — see the data-quality guide for the 517 places that didn't clear the bar.