Big Bear City, CA
Big Bear City, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Big Bear City at the 99th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 12,620 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Big Bear City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 98th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
12,620 buildings are counted in Big Bear City, and 54.5% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 6.4% rated Minimal. At 12,620 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Big Bear City compares
There's little gap between Big Bear City's 99th national percentile and its 90th percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Big Bear City ranks 335 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,213 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 164 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Big Bear City
Big Bear City's 99th-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.
Hardening a home in Big Bear City
Because Direct exposure dominates in Big Bear City (54.5%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Big Bear City's 99th-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 Big Bear City, see the exposure-zones guide.