Sparks, NV
Sparks wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Sparks lands at the 95th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 35,381 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Sparks at the 95th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Sparks's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Sparks (59.9% of 35,381 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 3.6% sit in the Direct zone. At 35,381 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Sparks ranks
Inside Nevada, Sparks sits at just the 54th percentile even though it scores 95th 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, Sparks ranks 1,578 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 302 by building count (1 is largest). Within Nevada alone, it ranks 57 of 123 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Nevada on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sparks
Sparks's 95th-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 Sparks
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Sparks (59.9% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Sparks's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 35,381 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Sparks. The exposure-zones guide covers what Sparks's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.