Carlsbad, NM
Carlsbad, NM's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Carlsbad sits at the 67th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 16,548 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Carlsbad at the 69th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Carlsbad's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 61.1% of Carlsbad's 16,548 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 17.5% Direct and 21.5% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 16,548 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Carlsbad compares
Inside New Mexico, Carlsbad sits at just the 38th percentile even though it scores 67th 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, Carlsbad ranks 10,435 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 876 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 307 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Carlsbad
Carlsbad's high rating (67th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 61.1% of Carlsbad'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.
Where Carlsbad's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 16,548 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Carlsbad. The exposure-zones guide covers what Carlsbad's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.