Barstow, CA
How exposed is Barstow to wildfire?
USFS scores Barstow at the 43rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 9,276 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Barstow at the 50th national percentile — 7 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Barstow's buildings actually sit
Most of Barstow's buildings (55.7%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 9,276 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Barstow ranks
Inside California, Barstow sits at just the 7th percentile even though it scores 43rd 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, Barstow ranks 17,889 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,776 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,463 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Barstow
Because Barstow is in California, a wildfire-hazard disclosure is legally required before a sale closes here — unusual nationally, since only these two states mandate it. The state's FAIR Plan alone carried 668,609 policies by the end of 2025. Full detail in the disclosure-law guide.
Hardening a home in Barstow
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Barstow (55.7% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Barstow's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 9,276 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Barstow. The exposure-zones guide covers what Barstow's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.