Houma, LA
How exposed is Houma to wildfire?
Houma's 15,142 buildings earn a 26th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Houma at the 21st national percentile — 5 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Houma's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 56.2% of Houma's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 2.7% Direct and 41.2% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 15,142 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Houma compares
Houma scores 26th nationally and 27th within Louisiana — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Houma ranks 23,446 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 977 by building count (1 is largest). Within Louisiana alone, it ranks 358 of 488 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Louisiana on its state page.
Houma and the insurance market
Houma's moderate rating (26th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 56.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Houma gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Houma's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Houma's 23,446-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Houma's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.