Sinai, SD
Sinai, SD's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Sinai at the 46th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 99 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 Sinai at the 42nd percentile, close to its 46th-percentile risk score.
Where Sinai's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 59.6% of Sinai's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 40.4% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Sinai compares
Inside South Dakota, Sinai sits at just the 23rd percentile even though it scores 46th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sinai ranks 17,034 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,106 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 339 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sinai
Sinai's elevated rating (46th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 59.6% of Sinai outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 99 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Sinai. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Sinai, see the exposure-zones guide.