Walden, CO
Walden wildfire risk explained
Walden's 645 buildings earn a 46th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Walden at the 46th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
96.6% of Walden's 645 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 3.4% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Walden compares
Walden's 46th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 13th ranking inside Colorado does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 33 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Walden ranks 17,167 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,258 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 413 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Walden and the insurance market
Walden's elevated wildfire rating (46th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Walden's 96.6% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Walden's 17,167-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Walden, see the exposure-zones guide.