Capitola, CA
Capitola wildfire risk explained
Capitola's 3,986 buildings earn a 60th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Capitola at the 60th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Capitola's building exposure, zone by zone
59.1% of Capitola's 3,986 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 1.2% Direct and 39.7% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Where Capitola ranks
Inside California, Capitola sits at just the 18th percentile even though it scores 60th 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, Capitola ranks 12,534 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,263 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,284 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Capitola and the insurance market
Capitola 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 60th-percentile score like Capitola's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 59.1% of Capitola's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Capitola's 12,534-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Capitola, see the exposure-zones guide.