Ames, TX
How exposed is Ames to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Ames lands at the 77th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 664 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Ames's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 80th percentile nationally.
Where Ames's buildings actually sit
Direct exposure dominates in Ames: 77.7% of its 664 buildings, versus 22.3% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Ames compares
Inside Texas, Ames sits at just the 52nd percentile even though it scores 77th 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, Ames ranks 7,288 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,022 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 859 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Ames
Ames's 77th-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.
Hardening a home in Ames
With 77.7% of Ames in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Ames's 7,288-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Ames, see the exposure-zones guide.