Meadow Lake, NM
Meadow Lake wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Meadow Lake lands at the 74th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 4,214 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Meadow Lake at the 70th percentile, close to its 74th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Meadow Lake: 100% of its 4,214 buildings, versus 0.1% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Meadow Lake compares
Meadow Lake's 74th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 45th ranking inside New Mexico does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 29 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Meadow Lake ranks 8,259 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,045 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 273 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Meadow Lake and the insurance market
Meadow Lake's 74th-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
Because Direct exposure dominates in Meadow Lake (100%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Meadow Lake's figures come from
Meadow Lake's 74th-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 Meadow Lake's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.