Watford City, ND
How exposed is Watford City to wildfire?
Watford City's 2,292 buildings earn a 80th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Watford City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 79th percentile nationally.
Watford City's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Watford City's buildings (80.4%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Watford City ranks
Watford City scores 80th nationally and 94th within North 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, Watford City ranks 6,404 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,716 by building count (1 is largest). Within North Dakota alone, it ranks 24 of 402 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for North Dakota on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Watford City's 80th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 80.4% of Watford City'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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Watford City's 6,404-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Watford City, see the exposure-zones guide.