Whitefish, MT
How exposed is Whitefish to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Whitefish at the 90th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 4,463 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Whitefish at the 90th 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
USFS puts 57.9% of Whitefish's 4,463 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 38.7% Direct and 3.4% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Whitefish against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Whitefish's 90th national percentile and its 76th percentile inside Montana, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Whitefish ranks 3,311 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,826 by building count (1 is largest). Within Montana alone, it ranks 114 of 475 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Montana on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Whitefish
At the 90th percentile nationally, Whitefish carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 57.9% of Whitefish'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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,463 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Whitefish. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Whitefish, see the exposure-zones guide.