St. Mary's, CO
St. Mary's wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, St. Mary's lands at the 91st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 264 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, St. Mary's's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 88th percentile nationally.
Where St. Mary's's buildings actually sit
264 buildings are counted in St. Mary's, and 94.3% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
St. Mary's against the rest of the country
There's little gap between St. Mary's's 91st national percentile and its 77th percentile inside Colorado, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, St. Mary's ranks 2,768 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,691 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 112 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in St. Mary's
St. Mary's's 91st-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in St. Mary's (94.3%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 264 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for St. Mary's. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond St. Mary's, see the exposure-zones guide.