Bonsall, CA
Bonsall wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Bonsall at the 86th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 2,524 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Bonsall's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 88th percentile nationally.
Where Bonsall's buildings actually sit
85.4% of Bonsall's 2,524 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 2,156 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 14.2% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 0.4% are Minimal.
Where Bonsall ranks
Inside California, Bonsall sits at just the 52nd percentile even though it scores 86th 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, Bonsall ranks 4,501 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,257 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 758 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Bonsall and the insurance market
Bonsall 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 86th-percentile score like Bonsall's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Bonsall's 85.4% 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
Bonsall's 86th-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 Bonsall, see the exposure-zones guide.