Morningside, NM
How exposed is Morningside to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Morningside at the 58th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 178 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Morningside at the 62nd national percentile — 4 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Morningside's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Morningside (84.3% of 178 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 15.7% sit in the Direct zone.
How Morningside compares
Morningside's 58th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 28th ranking inside New Mexico does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 31 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Morningside ranks 13,185 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,720 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 360 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Morningside
Morningside's elevated wildfire rating (58th 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
Morningside's 84.3% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Morningside's 13,185-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Morningside, see the exposure-zones guide.