Vale, SD
Vale wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Vale lands at the 73rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 148 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 Vale at the 72nd percentile, close to its 73rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 65.5% of Vale's 148 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 34.5% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Vale against the rest of the country
Vale scores 73rd nationally and 71st within South Dakota — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Vale ranks 8,617 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,968 by building count (1 is largest). Within South Dakota alone, it ranks 128 of 439 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for South Dakota on its state page.
Vale and the insurance market
Vale's 73rd-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Vale (65.5% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Vale's 73rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Vale, see the exposure-zones guide.