Costa Mesa, CA
How exposed is Costa Mesa to wildfire?
Costa Mesa's 28,812 buildings earn a 63rd-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.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Costa Mesa at the 67th percentile, close to its 63rd-percentile risk score.
Where Costa Mesa's buildings actually sit
Most of Costa Mesa's buildings (99.2% of 28,812) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 28,812 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Costa Mesa against the rest of the country
Costa Mesa's 63rd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 21st ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 42 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Costa Mesa ranks 11,776 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 409 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,248 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Costa Mesa and the insurance market
Costa Mesa 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 63rd-percentile score like Costa Mesa's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in Costa Mesa
With 99.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Costa Mesa gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Costa Mesa's figures come from
Costa Mesa's 63rd-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 Costa Mesa's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.