West Mountain, UT
How exposed is West Mountain to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts West Mountain at the 87th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 1,021 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks West Mountain at the 86th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
71.9% of West Mountain's 1,021 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 734 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 25% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 3.1% are Minimal.
How West Mountain compares
Inside Utah, West Mountain sits at just the 47th percentile even though it scores 87th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, West Mountain ranks 4,269 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,794 by building count (1 is largest). Within Utah alone, it ranks 174 of 326 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Utah on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in West Mountain
West Mountain's 87th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in West Mountain (71.9%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where West Mountain's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind West Mountain's 4,269-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what West Mountain's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.