Peak Place, NM
How exposed is Peak Place to wildfire?
USFS scores Peak Place at the 90th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 136 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Peak Place's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 86th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
96.3% of Peak Place's 136 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 131 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 3.7% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Peak Place against the rest of the country
Peak Place ranks lower within New Mexico (74th percentile statewide) than its 90th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Peak Place ranks 3,248 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,457 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 130 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Peak Place
Peak Place's 90th-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
Peak Place's 96.3% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Peak Place's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 136 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Peak Place. The exposure-zones guide covers what Peak Place's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.