Sentinel Butte, ND
Sentinel Butte wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Sentinel Butte at the 81st national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 118 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sentinel Butte's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 81st percentile nationally.
Sentinel Butte's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Sentinel Butte's 118 counted buildings, 67.8% 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.
Sentinel Butte against the rest of the country
Sentinel Butte scores 81st nationally and 96th within North Dakota — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sentinel Butte ranks 5,898 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 28,267 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 19 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Sentinel Butte's 81st-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
With 67.8% of Sentinel Butte in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Sentinel Butte's 81st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Sentinel Butte, see the exposure-zones guide.