Gallup, NM
Gallup, NM's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Gallup at the 31st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 8,510 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 Gallup at the 29th percentile, close to its 31st-percentile risk score.
Where Gallup's buildings actually sit
Most of Gallup's buildings (81.1%) 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. At 8,510 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Gallup ranks
Gallup's 31st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 3rd 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, Gallup ranks 21,809 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,953 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 482 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Gallup's moderate wildfire rating (31st percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Gallup (81.1% 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
Gallup's 31st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Gallup, see the exposure-zones guide.