El Rito, NM
How exposed is El Rito to wildfire?
USFS scores El Rito at the 90th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 749 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks El Rito at the 86th national percentile — 4 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where El Rito's buildings actually sit
Of El Rito's 749 counted buildings, 91.1% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
El Rito against the rest of the country
Inside New Mexico, El Rito sits at just the 73rd 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, El Rito ranks 3,314 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,132 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 133 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
El Rito and the insurance market
At the 90th percentile nationally, El Rito carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
El Rito's 91.1% 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 El Rito's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 749 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for El Rito. The exposure-zones guide covers what El Rito's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.