Sula, MT
Sula, MT's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Sula at the 98th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 63 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Sula at the 98th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Sula's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Sula's 63 counted buildings, 100% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Sula compares
Sula scores 98th nationally and 97th within Montana — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sula ranks 760 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,551 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 15 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sula
Sula's 98th-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 Direct exposure dominates in Sula (100%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Sula's figures come from
Sula's 98th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sula's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.