Ricardo, TX
Ricardo wildfire risk explained
Ricardo's 700 buildings earn a 80th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Ricardo at the 81st national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Ricardo's buildings actually sit
91.6% of Ricardo's 700 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 641 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 0.6% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 7.9% are Minimal.
Where Ricardo ranks
Inside Texas, Ricardo sits at just the 61st percentile even though it scores 80th 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, Ricardo ranks 6,319 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,660 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 702 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ricardo's 80th-percentile, 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
Ricardo's 91.6% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 700 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Ricardo. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Ricardo, see the exposure-zones guide.