Las Vegas, NM
Las Vegas, NM's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Las Vegas at the 92nd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 7,005 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Las Vegas's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 91st percentile nationally.
Las Vegas's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Las Vegas's buildings (81.9%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 7,005 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Las Vegas against the rest of the country
Las Vegas's risk sits at a similar level relative to New Mexico (80th percentile statewide) as it does nationally (92nd) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Las Vegas ranks 2,525 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,462 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 102 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Las Vegas and the insurance market
Las Vegas's 92nd-percentile, very 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
Las Vegas's 81.9% 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 Las Vegas's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 7,005 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Las Vegas. The exposure-zones guide covers what Las Vegas's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.