Highlands, TX
How exposed is Highlands to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Highlands lands at the 71st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 4,682 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Highlands at the 74th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Highlands's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 24.2% of Highlands's 4,682 buildings carry Direct exposure and 5.4% carry Indirect; the remaining 70.4% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Highlands ranks
Highlands's 71st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 34th ranking inside Texas does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 37 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Highlands ranks 9,154 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,635 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 1,191 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
At the 71st percentile nationally, Highlands carries the 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
Highlands's 70.4% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Highlands's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,682 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Highlands. The exposure-zones guide covers what Highlands's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.