Los Chaves, NM
How exposed is Los Chaves to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Los Chaves lands at the 62nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 3,598 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Los Chaves at the 61st national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Los Chaves's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 86.9% of Los Chaves's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 13.1% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 3,127 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Los Chaves compares
Inside New Mexico, Los Chaves sits at just the 33rd percentile even though it scores 62nd 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, Los Chaves ranks 11,952 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,651 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 332 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Los Chaves and the insurance market
Los Chaves's 62nd-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Los Chaves (86.9%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Los Chaves's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 3,598 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Los Chaves. The exposure-zones guide covers what Los Chaves's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.