Searchlight, NV
How exposed is Searchlight to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Searchlight at the 90th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 491 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Searchlight's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 88th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
85.1% of Searchlight's 491 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 14.9% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Searchlight compares
Searchlight ranks lower within Nevada (47th percentile statewide) than its 90th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Searchlight ranks 3,245 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,515 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nevada alone, it ranks 66 of 123 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nevada on its state page.
Searchlight and the insurance market
Searchlight's 90th-percentile, very 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
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Searchlight (85.1% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Searchlight's 3,245-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Searchlight, see the exposure-zones guide.