Thunderbird Bay, TX
Thunderbird Bay wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Thunderbird Bay at the 89th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 1,476 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Thunderbird Bay at the 88th percentile, close to its 89th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 54.1% of Thunderbird Bay's 1,476 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 42.6% Direct and 3.3% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Thunderbird Bay ranks
Thunderbird Bay's risk sits at a similar level relative to Texas (82nd percentile statewide) as it does nationally (89th) — this place isn't unusual for its own state either way. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Thunderbird Bay ranks 3,514 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,280 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 325 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Thunderbird Bay's 89th-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 Thunderbird Bay
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Thunderbird Bay (54.1% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Thunderbird Bay's 89th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Thunderbird Bay, see the exposure-zones guide.