Abilene, TX
Abilene, TX's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Abilene sits at the 86th 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 51,046 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Abilene at the 84th percentile, close to its 86th-percentile risk score.
Abilene's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 11.9% of Abilene's 51,046 buildings carry Direct exposure and 18.4% carry Indirect; the remaining 69.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 51,046 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Abilene against the rest of the country
Abilene scores 86th nationally and 75th within Texas — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Abilene ranks 4,456 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 168 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 444 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Abilene's 86th-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
Even with 69.8% of Abilene outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Abilene's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 51,046 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Abilene. The exposure-zones guide covers what Abilene's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.