Cliff, NM
Cliff, NM's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Cliff at the 90th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 341 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cliff at the 89th national percentile — 1 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
USFS classifies 96.5% of Cliff's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 3.5% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 329 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Cliff compares
Inside New Mexico, Cliff sits at just the 74th percentile even though it scores 90th 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, Cliff ranks 3,148 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,557 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 126 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Cliff's very high rating (90th 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 Cliff
With 96.5% of Cliff 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
Cliff's 90th-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 Cliff, see the exposure-zones guide.