Salmon, ID
Salmon wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Salmon lands at the 92nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 2,264 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Salmon at the 92nd national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Salmon's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 92.8% of Salmon's 2,264 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 7.2% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Salmon compares
Salmon ranks lower within Idaho (70th percentile statewide) than its 92nd national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Salmon ranks 2,547 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,784 by building count (1 is largest). Within Idaho alone, it ranks 71 of 232 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Idaho on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Salmon's very high rating (92nd percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Salmon's 92.8% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Salmon's 2,547-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Salmon, see the exposure-zones guide.