Arnold, CA
How exposed is Arnold to wildfire?
Arnold sits at the 100th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 5,707 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Arnold's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 99th percentile nationally.
Arnold's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Arnold's 5,707 counted buildings, 84% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first. At 5,707 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Arnold compares
There's little gap between Arnold's 100th national percentile and its 94th percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Arnold ranks 147 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,030 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 91 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Arnold's 100th-percentile score lands in California, the only two states requiring a wildfire disclosure at sale. California's surplus-lines homeowners market passed 300,000 policies for the first time in 2025, driven by carriers pulling back from wildfire-exposed areas statewide. The disclosure-law guide covers what it requires.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Arnold's 84% 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
Arnold'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 Arnold, see the exposure-zones guide.