Kerens, TX
Kerens wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Kerens lands at the 79th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 885 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Kerens's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 80th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 72.9% of Kerens's 885 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 27.1% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Kerens ranks
Inside Texas, Kerens sits at just the 59th percentile even though it scores 79th 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, Kerens ranks 6,538 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,868 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 733 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Kerens and the insurance market
Kerens's 79th-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
What would actually reduce this score
Kerens's 72.9% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Kerens's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 885 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Kerens. The exposure-zones guide covers what Kerens's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.