Pueblo West, CO
Pueblo West wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Pueblo West lands at the 83rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 15,305 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Pueblo West at the 83rd national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Pueblo West's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Pueblo West: 59% of its 15,305 buildings, versus 31.9% Indirect and 9.2% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap. At 15,305 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Pueblo West compares
Pueblo West's 83rd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 60th ranking inside Colorado does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 22 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pueblo West ranks 5,474 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 968 by building count (1 is largest). Within Colorado alone, it ranks 188 of 472 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Colorado on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Pueblo West's 83rd-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 59% of Pueblo West 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.
More on how this number was built
Pueblo West's 83rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Pueblo West, see the exposure-zones guide.