Belmont, CA
Belmont wildfire risk explained
Belmont's 8,052 buildings earn a 65th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Belmont at the 63rd percentile, close to its 65th-percentile risk score.
Belmont's building exposure, zone by zone
Belmont rates 82.9% Minimal exposure against just 13.6% Direct and 3.5% Indirect — of 8,052 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 8,052 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Belmont against the rest of the country
Belmont ranks lower within California (23rd percentile statewide) than its 65th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Belmont ranks 11,149 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,093 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,212 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Belmont
Belmont 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 65th-percentile score like Belmont's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Belmont's 82.9% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 8,052 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Belmont. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Belmont, see the exposure-zones guide.