Southgate, MI
Southgate wildfire risk explained
Southgate's 15,423 buildings earn a 10th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Southgate's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 12th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 99.2% of Southgate's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 0.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 15,423 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Southgate compares
Southgate's 32nd-percentile standing inside Michigan outpaces its 10th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Southgate ranks 28,500 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 956 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 511 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Southgate
At the 10th national percentile, Southgate rates low 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 99.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Southgate 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Southgate's 28,500-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Southgate, see the exposure-zones guide.