Sandia Park, NM
Sandia Park, NM's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Sandia Park at the 97th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 169 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sandia Park's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 95th percentile nationally.
Sandia Park's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Sandia Park: 99.4% of its 169 buildings, versus 0.6% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Sandia Park compares
There's little gap between Sandia Park's 97th national percentile and its 92nd percentile inside New Mexico, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sandia Park ranks 921 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,077 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 44 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
At the 97th percentile nationally, Sandia Park carries the very high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Hardening a home in Sandia Park
Sandia Park's 99.4% 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 Sandia Park's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Sandia Park's 921-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sandia Park's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.