Sonora, TX
Sonora wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Sonora lands at the 97th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 1,763 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sonora's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 97th percentile nationally.
Where Sonora's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 88.4% of Sonora's 1,763 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 11.6% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Sonora compares
Sonora scores 97th nationally and 97th 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, Sonora ranks 1,022 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,185 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 50 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sonora
Sonora's 97th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Sonora's 88.4% 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 Sonora's 1,022-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Sonora, see the exposure-zones guide.