Arivaca, AZ
Arivaca wildfire risk explained
Arivaca sits at the 98th 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 902 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 Arivaca at the 98th percentile, close to its 98th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 95.5% of Arivaca's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 4.6% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 861 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Where Arivaca ranks
Arivaca scores 98th nationally and 86th within Arizona — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Arivaca ranks 744 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,701 by building count (1 is largest). Within Arizona alone, it ranks 63 of 441 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Arizona on its state page.
Arivaca and the insurance market
Arivaca's 98th-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
Arivaca's 95.5% 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
Arivaca's 98th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Arivaca, see the exposure-zones guide.