Del Mar, CA
Del Mar, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Del Mar at the 69th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 2,282 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Del Mar at the 70th percentile, close to its 69th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Del Mar rates 95.8% Minimal exposure against just 4.2% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 2,282 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Del Mar against the rest of the country
Del Mar's 69th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 27th 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, Del Mar ranks 9,634 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,741 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,148 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Del Mar and the insurance market
Del Mar's 69th-percentile score lands in California, the only two states requiring a wildfire disclosure at sale. California's surplus-lines homeowners market passed 300,000 policies for the first time in 2025, driven by carriers pulling back from wildfire-exposed areas statewide. The disclosure-law guide covers what it requires.
What would actually reduce this score
Del Mar's 95.8% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 2,282 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Del Mar. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Del Mar, see the exposure-zones guide.