Upper Witter Gulch, CO
Upper Witter Gulch wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Upper Witter Gulch at the 98th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 189 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Upper Witter Gulch at the 97th percentile, close to its 98th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Upper Witter Gulch: 100% of its 189 buildings, versus 0% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Upper Witter Gulch against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Upper Witter Gulch's 98th national percentile and its 92nd percentile inside Colorado, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Upper Witter Gulch ranks 568 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,271 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 40 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
At the 98th percentile nationally, Upper Witter Gulch carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
With 100% of Upper Witter Gulch in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Upper Witter Gulch's 568-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Upper Witter Gulch, see the exposure-zones guide.