Chical, NM
Chical, NM's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Chical sits at the 65th 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 72 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 Chical at the 66th percentile, close to its 65th-percentile risk score.
Where Chical's buildings actually sit
Of Chical's 72 counted buildings, 100% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Chical compares
Chical's 65th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 36th ranking inside New Mexico does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 29 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chical ranks 10,910 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,216 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 314 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Chical
Chical'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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 100% of Chical 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 Chical's 10,910-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Chical, see the exposure-zones guide.