Memphis, TX
How exposed is Memphis to wildfire?
USFS scores Memphis at the 89th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 1,656 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 Memphis at the 86th percentile, close to its 89th-percentile risk score.
Where Memphis's buildings actually sit
Indirect exposure is dominant in Memphis (86.2% of 1,656 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 13.8% sit in the Direct zone.
How Memphis compares
Memphis's risk sits at a similar level relative to Texas (82nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (89th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Memphis ranks 3,605 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,572 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 335 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Memphis and the insurance market
Memphis's 89th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Memphis's 86.2% 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.
More on how this number was built
Memphis's 89th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Memphis, see the exposure-zones guide.