Las Cruces, NM
Las Cruces wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Las Cruces at the 51st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 39,875 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 Las Cruces at the 51st percentile, close to its 51st-percentile risk score.
Las Cruces's building exposure, zone by zone
Las Cruces rates 54.7% Minimal exposure against just 7% Direct and 38.3% Indirect — of 39,875 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 39,875 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Las Cruces compares
Las Cruces's 51st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 17th ranking inside New Mexico does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 33 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Las Cruces ranks 15,568 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 244 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 411 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Las Cruces
Las Cruces's elevated rating (51st percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Las Cruces
With 54.7% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Las Cruces gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Las Cruces's figures come from
Las Cruces's 51st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Las Cruces's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.