Alta, CA
Alta wildfire risk explained
Alta's 399 buildings earn a 100th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Alta at the 100th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Alta's building exposure, zone by zone
100% of Alta's 399 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 399 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 0% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0% are Minimal.
How Alta compares
Alta scores 100th nationally and 98th within California — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Alta ranks 51 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,223 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 28 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Alta
Alta sits in California, one of two states that legally require a wildfire-risk disclosure at sale. California's FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort, ended 2025 with 668,609 residential policies after adding 21,859 in Q4 alone — the kind of market shift a 100th-percentile score like Alta's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Alta's 100% 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.
More on how this number was built
Alta's 100th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Alta, see the exposure-zones guide.