Sugar City, CO
How exposed is Sugar City to wildfire?
Sugar City sits at the 78th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 255 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sugar City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 76th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
85.1% of Sugar City's 255 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 14.9% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Sugar City compares
Sugar City's 78th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 49th ranking inside Colorado does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 28 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sugar City ranks 7,052 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,971 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 240 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Sugar City's 78th-percentile, 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.
Hardening a home in Sugar City
Because 85.1% of Sugar City'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.
Where Sugar City's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 255 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Sugar City. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sugar City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.