Talpa, NM
How exposed is Talpa to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Talpa lands at the 93rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 666 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Talpa's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 87th percentile nationally.
Talpa's building exposure, zone by zone
83.3% of Talpa's 666 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 555 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 16.7% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Talpa against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Talpa's 93rd national percentile and its 81st percentile inside New Mexico, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Talpa ranks 2,210 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,002 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 96 of 495 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Mexico on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Talpa's 93rd-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 Talpa
Talpa's 83.3% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Talpa's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Talpa's 2,210-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Talpa's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.