Wells Branch, TX
How exposed is Wells Branch to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Wells Branch at the 65th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 3,198 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 Wells Branch at the 61st percentile, close to its 65th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Wells Branch's buildings (97.6% of 3,198) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
Wells Branch against the rest of the country
Wells Branch's 65th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 20th ranking inside Texas does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 44 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Wells Branch ranks 11,205 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,167 by building count (1 is largest). Within Texas alone, it ranks 1,430 of 1,795 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Texas on its state page.
Wells Branch and the insurance market
At the 65th percentile nationally, Wells Branch carries the high rating that has pushed some carriers to limit new business in similarly-scored places elsewhere in the country. Worth comparing quotes rather than assuming last year's renewal terms still apply.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 97.6% of Wells Branch outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Wells Branch's 11,205-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Wells Branch, see the exposure-zones guide.