St. James, MI
St. James wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts St. James at the 22nd national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 347 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts St. James at the 20th percentile, close to its 22nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of St. James's 347 counted buildings, 57.6% carry Direct exposure and only 5.2% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How St. James compares
Within Michigan, St. James ranks higher (70th percentile) than it does nationally (22nd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. James ranks 24,617 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,395 by building count (1 is largest). Within Michigan alone, it ranks 223 of 745 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Michigan on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in St. James
At the 22nd national percentile, St. James rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in St. James
With 57.6% of St. James 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind St. James's 24,617-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond St. James, see the exposure-zones guide.