Payne Springs, TX
How exposed is Payne Springs to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Payne Springs lands at the 76th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 623 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Payne Springs at the 77th percentile, close to its 76th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Payne Springs: 52.3% of its 623 buildings, versus 28.9% Indirect and 18.8% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Payne Springs compares
Inside Texas, Payne Springs sits at just the 50th percentile even though it scores 76th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Payne Springs ranks 7,483 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,524 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 900 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Payne Springs and the insurance market
Payne Springs's high rating (76th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Payne Springs (52.3%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 623 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Payne Springs. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Payne Springs, see the exposure-zones guide.