Nogales, AZ
How exposed is Nogales to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Nogales at the 97th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 6,838 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Nogales at the 98th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Nogales's buildings actually sit
6,838 buildings are counted in Nogales, and 63.8% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 32.6% in Direct exposure or the 3.6% rated Minimal. At 6,838 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Nogales compares
Nogales's risk sits at a similar level relative to Arizona (82nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (97th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Nogales ranks 966 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,535 by building count (1 is largest). Within Arizona alone, it ranks 79 of 441 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Arizona on its state page.
Nogales and the insurance market
At the 97th percentile nationally, Nogales carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
What would actually reduce this score
Nogales's 63.8% 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.
Where Nogales's figures come from
Nogales's 97th-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 Nogales's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.