South Padre Island, TX
South Padre Island wildfire risk explained
USFS scores South Padre Island at the 81st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 2,100 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks South Padre Island at the 74th national percentile — 7 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
South Padre Island's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of South Padre Island's buildings (97.9% of 2,100) 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.
South Padre Island against the rest of the country
South Padre Island's 81st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 64th ranking inside Texas does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 17 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, South Padre Island ranks 6,000 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,193 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 651 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in South Padre Island
South Padre Island's 81st-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.
Hardening a home in South Padre Island
With 97.9% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, South Padre Island 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
South Padre Island's 81st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond South Padre Island, see the exposure-zones guide.