South Salt Lake, UT
South Salt Lake wildfire risk explained
South Salt Lake sits at the 40th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 8,793 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts South Salt Lake at the 42nd percentile, close to its 40th-percentile risk score.
Where South Salt Lake's buildings actually sit
Only 1.2% of South Salt Lake's 8,793 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 98.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 8,793 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
South Salt Lake against the rest of the country
South Salt Lake's 40th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 5th ranking inside Utah does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 35 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, South Salt Lake ranks 18,829 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,896 by building count (1 is largest). Within Utah alone, it ranks 310 of 326 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Utah on its state page.
South Salt Lake and the insurance market
At the 40th national percentile, South Salt Lake rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
With 98.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, South Salt Lake gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 8,793 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for South Salt Lake. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond South Salt Lake, see the exposure-zones guide.