Boyes Hot Springs, CA
How exposed is Boyes Hot Springs to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Boyes Hot Springs lands at the 81st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 2,371 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Boyes Hot Springs's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 81st percentile nationally.
Where Boyes Hot Springs's buildings actually sit
Most of Boyes Hot Springs's buildings (92.8%) 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.
How Boyes Hot Springs compares
Boyes Hot Springs's 81st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 41st ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 39 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Boyes Hot Springs ranks 6,105 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,566 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 919 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Boyes Hot Springs and the insurance market
Boyes Hot Springs 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 81st-percentile score like Boyes Hot Springs's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Boyes Hot Springs (92.8% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Boyes Hot Springs's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 2,371 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Boyes Hot Springs. The exposure-zones guide covers what Boyes Hot Springs's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.