Channel Islands Beach, CA
How exposed is Channel Islands Beach to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Channel Islands Beach lands at the 12th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 1,766 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 Channel Islands Beach at the 16th percentile, close to its 12th-percentile risk score.
Where Channel Islands Beach's buildings actually sit
Channel Islands Beach rates 98.3% Minimal exposure against just 0% Direct and 1.7% Indirect — of 1,766 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Channel Islands Beach against the rest of the country
Channel Islands Beach scores 12th nationally and 1st within California — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Channel Islands Beach ranks 27,630 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,165 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,559 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
Channel Islands Beach 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 12th-percentile score like Channel Islands Beach's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 98.3% of Channel Islands Beach outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,766 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Channel Islands Beach. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Channel Islands Beach, see the exposure-zones guide.