Thatcher, UT
How exposed is Thatcher to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Thatcher at the 97th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 435 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 Thatcher at the 97th percentile, close to its 97th-percentile risk score.
Where Thatcher's buildings actually sit
435 buildings are counted in Thatcher, and 63.7% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0.5% rated Minimal.
How Thatcher compares
There's little gap between Thatcher's 97th national percentile and its 91st percentile inside Utah, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Thatcher ranks 865 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,555 by building count (1 is largest). Within Utah alone, it ranks 31 of 326 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Utah on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Thatcher's 97th-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.
Hardening a home in Thatcher
Because Direct exposure dominates in Thatcher (63.7%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Thatcher's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 435 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Thatcher. The exposure-zones guide covers what Thatcher's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.