Costilla, NM
How exposed is Costilla to wildfire?
USFS scores Costilla at the 75th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 244 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Costilla at the 64th national percentile — 11 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
Direct exposure dominates in Costilla: 99.6% of its 244 buildings, versus 0.4% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Costilla against the rest of the country
Costilla's 75th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 47th ranking inside New Mexico does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 28 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Costilla ranks 7,882 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,338 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 265 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Costilla
Costilla's high rating (75th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Costilla's 99.6% 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.
Where Costilla's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Costilla's 7,882-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Costilla's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.