Portales, NM
Portales, NM's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Portales sits at the 97th 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 6,545 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Portales's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 98th percentile nationally.
Portales's building exposure, zone by zone
88.8% of Portales's 6,545 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 10.3% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 6,545 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Portales compares
Portales scores 97th nationally and 91st within New Mexico — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Portales ranks 920 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,650 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 43 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Portales
Portales's very high rating (97th 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.
Hardening a home in Portales
With 88.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Portales gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Portales's 97th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Portales, see the exposure-zones guide.