Southwest Sandhill, TX
Southwest Sandhill, TX's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Southwest Sandhill lands at the 85th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 2,005 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Southwest Sandhill at the 83rd national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Southwest Sandhill's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 71.1% of Southwest Sandhill's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 28.9% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 1,426 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Southwest Sandhill compares
There's little gap between Southwest Sandhill's 85th national percentile and its 74th percentile inside Texas, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Southwest Sandhill ranks 4,740 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,464 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 479 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Southwest Sandhill and the insurance market
Southwest Sandhill's 85th-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
With 71.1% of Southwest Sandhill in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Southwest Sandhill's 85th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Southwest Sandhill, see the exposure-zones guide.