Santa Cruz, TX
Santa Cruz wildfire risk explained
Santa Cruz sits at the 86th 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 37 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Santa Cruz's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 85th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
100% of Santa Cruz's 37 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 0% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Santa Cruz against the rest of the country
Santa Cruz scores 86th nationally and 75th within Texas — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Santa Cruz ranks 4,488 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,245 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 450 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Santa Cruz and the insurance market
Santa Cruz's very high rating (86th 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 Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz's 100% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Santa Cruz's 4,488-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Santa Cruz, see the exposure-zones guide.