Decatur, TX
How exposed is Decatur to wildfire?
Decatur's 3,461 buildings earn a 88th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Decatur at the 89th percentile, close to its 88th-percentile risk score.
Decatur's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Decatur's buildings (77.2%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Decatur ranks
Decatur's risk sits at a similar level relative to Texas (80th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (88th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Decatur ranks 3,732 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,828 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 349 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Decatur and the insurance market
Decatur's 88th-percentile, very high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 77.2% of Decatur'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 Decatur's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 3,461 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Decatur. The exposure-zones guide covers what Decatur's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.