Chico, CA
Chico, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Chico's 32,798 buildings earn a 90th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Chico at the 90th percentile, close to its 90th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 2.7% of Chico's 32,798 buildings carry Direct exposure and 48.3% carry Indirect; the remaining 49% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 32,798 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Chico ranks
Chico ranks lower within California (60th percentile statewide) than its 90th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chico ranks 3,299 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 333 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 622 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Chico and the insurance market
Chico 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 90th-percentile score like Chico's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Chico's 49% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Chico's figures come from
Chico's 90th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Chico's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.