Thompson Falls, MT
How exposed is Thompson Falls to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Thompson Falls lands at the 80th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 949 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Thompson Falls at the 80th percentile, close to its 80th-percentile risk score.
Thompson Falls's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 77.3% of Thompson Falls's 949 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 22.7% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Thompson Falls ranks
Thompson Falls ranks lower within Montana (53rd percentile statewide) than its 80th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Thompson Falls ranks 6,179 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,315 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 222 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Thompson Falls and the insurance market
Thompson Falls's 80th-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 Thompson Falls
Because 77.3% of Thompson Falls'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 949 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Thompson Falls. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Thompson Falls, see the exposure-zones guide.