Cambria, CA
Cambria wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Cambria lands at the 93rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 4,984 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Cambria at the 95th percentile, close to its 93rd-percentile risk score.
Where Cambria's buildings actually sit
Most of Cambria's buildings (66.6%) 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 Cambria compares
Inside California, Cambria sits at just the 69th percentile even though it scores 93rd 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, Cambria ranks 2,194 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,434 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 492 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
Cambria's 93rd-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 Cambria
Cambria's 66.6% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,984 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cambria. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Cambria, see the exposure-zones guide.