Santa Fe, NM
How exposed is Santa Fe to wildfire?
Santa Fe's 40,750 buildings earn a 87th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Santa Fe at the 79th national percentile — 7 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Santa Fe's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Santa Fe's buildings (46.3% of 40,750) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 40,750 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Santa Fe compares
Santa Fe ranks lower within New Mexico (66th percentile statewide) than its 87th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Santa Fe ranks 4,251 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 236 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 168 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Santa Fe
At the 87th percentile nationally, Santa Fe 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 Santa Fe
With 46.3% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Santa Fe gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Santa Fe's 4,251-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Santa Fe, see the exposure-zones guide.