Butte Valley, CA
Butte Valley wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Butte Valley at the 94th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 785 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Butte Valley at the 95th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Butte Valley's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 76.9% of Butte Valley's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 23.1% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 604 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
Butte Valley against the rest of the country
Inside California, Butte Valley sits at just the 70th percentile even though it scores 94th 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, Butte Valley ranks 2,035 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,762 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 474 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
Because Butte Valley is in California, a wildfire-hazard disclosure is legally required before a sale closes here — unusual nationally, since only these two states mandate it. The state's FAIR Plan alone carried 668,609 policies by the end of 2025. Full detail in the disclosure-law guide.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 76.9% of Butte Valley in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Butte Valley's 94th-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 Butte Valley, see the exposure-zones guide.