Chamizal, NM
Chamizal wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Chamizal at the 65th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 83 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Chamizal at the 62nd national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Chamizal's buildings actually sit
83 buildings are counted in Chamizal, and 50.6% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 49.4% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Chamizal against the rest of the country
Inside New Mexico, Chamizal sits at just the 36th percentile even though it scores 65th 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, Chamizal ranks 11,028 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,771 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 317 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Chamizal and the insurance market
Chamizal's high rating (65th 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 Chamizal
Chamizal's 50.6% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Chamizal's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Chamizal's 11,028-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Chamizal's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.