Mercedes, TX
How exposed is Mercedes to wildfire?
Mercedes's 5,853 buildings earn a 54th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Mercedes at the 54th percentile, close to its 54th-percentile risk score.
Where Mercedes's buildings actually sit
87.5% of Mercedes's 5,853 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 12.5% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 5,853 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Mercedes ranks
Mercedes's 54th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 9th ranking inside Texas does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 45 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mercedes ranks 14,670 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,941 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 1,640 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Mercedes and the insurance market
Mercedes's elevated wildfire rating (54th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
With 87.5% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Mercedes gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,853 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Mercedes. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Mercedes, see the exposure-zones guide.