San Antonio, TX
San Antonio wildfire risk explained
San Antonio sits at the 70th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 483,058 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks San Antonio at the 70th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
78.8% of San Antonio's 483,058 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 9.8% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 483,058 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
San Antonio against the rest of the country
San Antonio's 70th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 31st ranking inside Texas does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 39 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, San Antonio ranks 9,405 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 1,238 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
San Antonio's 70th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 78.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, San Antonio gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where San Antonio's figures come from
San Antonio's 70th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what San Antonio's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.