Westminster, CO
How exposed is Westminster to wildfire?
Westminster sits at the 82nd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 34,507 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Westminster at the 82nd national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Westminster's buildings actually sit
Westminster rates 89.5% Minimal exposure against just 4.3% Direct and 6.2% Indirect — of 34,507 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 34,507 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Westminster against the rest of the country
Westminster ranks lower within Colorado (58th percentile statewide) than its 82nd national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Westminster ranks 5,699 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 315 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 199 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
Westminster and the insurance market
Westminster's 82nd-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 89.5% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Westminster gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Westminster's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 34,507 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Westminster. The exposure-zones guide covers what Westminster's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.