Sterling Ranch, CO
How exposed is Sterling Ranch to wildfire?
Sterling Ranch's 762 buildings earn a 95th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sterling Ranch's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 96th percentile nationally.
Sterling Ranch's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Sterling Ranch (59.1% of 762 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 40.9% sit in the Direct zone.
Sterling Ranch against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Sterling Ranch's 95th national percentile and its 83rd percentile inside Colorado, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sterling Ranch ranks 1,539 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,992 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 81 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sterling Ranch
Sterling Ranch's 95th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 59.1% of Sterling Ranch's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 762 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Sterling Ranch. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Sterling Ranch, see the exposure-zones guide.