Silver Gate, MT
How exposed is Silver Gate to wildfire?
USFS scores Silver Gate at the 96th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 194 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Silver Gate's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 95th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Silver Gate's 194 counted buildings, 99.5% 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.
How Silver Gate compares
Silver Gate scores 96th nationally and 91st within Montana — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Silver Gate ranks 1,200 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,083 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 42 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 96th percentile nationally, Silver Gate carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Silver Gate
With 99.5% of Silver Gate 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
Silver Gate's 96th-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 Silver Gate, see the exposure-zones guide.