Berkeley, CA
How exposed is Berkeley to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Berkeley at the 83rd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 31,164 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 Berkeley at the 82nd percentile, close to its 83rd-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Berkeley's buildings (80% of 31,164) 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. At 31,164 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Berkeley ranks
Berkeley ranks lower within California (45th percentile statewide) than its 83rd national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Berkeley ranks 5,471 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 360 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 870 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
Berkeley's 83rd-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
Berkeley's 80% 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 31,164 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Berkeley. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Berkeley, see the exposure-zones guide.