Silsbee, TX
Silsbee wildfire risk explained
Silsbee sits at the 82nd 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 4,338 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Silsbee at the 84th percentile, close to its 82nd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Silsbee (51.1% of 4,338 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 48.6% sit in the Direct zone.
Silsbee against the rest of the country
Inside Texas, Silsbee sits at just the 65th percentile even though it scores 82nd nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Silsbee ranks 5,811 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,946 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 630 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Silsbee and the insurance market
Silsbee's 82nd-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 Silsbee (51.1% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,338 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Silsbee. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Silsbee, see the exposure-zones guide.