El Quiote, TX
How exposed is El Quiote to wildfire?
USFS scores El Quiote at the 84th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 97 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts El Quiote at the 84th percentile, close to its 84th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 99% of El Quiote's 97 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 1% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
El Quiote against the rest of the country
El Quiote's risk sits at a similar level relative to Texas (72nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (84th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, El Quiote ranks 4,994 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,202 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 508 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
El Quiote's 84th-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.
Hardening a home in El Quiote
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in El Quiote (99% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 97 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for El Quiote. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond El Quiote, see the exposure-zones guide.