Gonzales, LA
How exposed is Gonzales to wildfire?
Gonzales's 5,286 buildings earn a 20th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Gonzales's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 21st percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 42.5% of Gonzales's 5,286 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 20.4% Direct and 37.1% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 5,286 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Gonzales compares
Gonzales's risk sits at a similar level relative to Louisiana (19th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (20th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Gonzales ranks 25,244 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,265 by building count (1 is largest). Within Louisiana alone, it ranks 395 of 488 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Louisiana on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Gonzales's low wildfire rating (20th 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.
Hardening a home in Gonzales
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Gonzales (42.5% 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
Gonzales's 20th-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 Gonzales, see the exposure-zones guide.