Cherokee, CA
How exposed is Cherokee to wildfire?
USFS scores Cherokee at the 93rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 63 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cherokee at the 92nd national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Of Cherokee's 63 counted buildings, 100% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
How Cherokee compares
Cherokee ranks lower within California (69th percentile statewide) than its 93rd national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cherokee ranks 2,069 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,534 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 481 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
Cherokee 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 93rd-percentile score like Cherokee's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in Cherokee
Because Direct exposure dominates in Cherokee (100%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 63 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Cherokee. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Cherokee, see the exposure-zones guide.