Arenas Valley, NM
How exposed is Arenas Valley to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Arenas Valley lands at the 81st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 1,112 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Arenas Valley at the 75th national percentile — 6 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
90.4% of Arenas Valley's 1,112 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 1,005 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 9.6% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Where Arenas Valley ranks
Arenas Valley's 81st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 54th ranking inside New Mexico does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 27 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Arenas Valley ranks 6,055 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,207 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 227 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Arenas Valley and the insurance market
Arenas Valley's very high rating (81st percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Hardening a home in Arenas Valley
Arenas Valley's 90.4% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,112 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Arenas Valley. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Arenas Valley, see the exposure-zones guide.