Novice, TX
Novice wildfire risk explained
Novice sits at the 91st percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 162 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Novice at the 91st percentile, close to its 91st-percentile risk score.
Novice's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 62.4% of Novice's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 37.7% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 101 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Novice against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Novice's 91st national percentile and its 87th percentile inside Texas, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Novice ranks 2,786 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,357 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 238 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Novice and the insurance market
Novice's 91st-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
With 62.4% of Novice in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Novice's figures come from
Novice's 91st-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 Novice's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.