Early, TX
Early, TX's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Early sits at the 86th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,851 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 Early at the 85th percentile, close to its 86th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Early's 1,851 counted buildings, 62.6% carry Direct exposure and only 2.3% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Early ranks
Early's risk sits at a similar level relative to Texas (75th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (86th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Early ranks 4,550 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,907 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 456 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Early's 86th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Early (62.6%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Early's 4,550-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Early, see the exposure-zones guide.