Tecolote, NM
How exposed is Tecolote to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Tecolote lands at the 90th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 222 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Tecolote at the 86th national percentile — 4 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
98.2% of Tecolote's 222 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 218 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 1.8% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
Where Tecolote ranks
Inside New Mexico, Tecolote sits at just the 75th percentile even though it scores 90th 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, Tecolote ranks 3,150 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,056 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Mexico alone, it ranks 128 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
Tecolote's 90th-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 98.2% of Tecolote 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Tecolote's 3,150-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Tecolote, see the exposure-zones guide.