Desert Hot Springs, CA
How exposed is Desert Hot Springs to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Desert Hot Springs at the 83rd national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 10,203 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Desert Hot Springs's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 81st percentile nationally.
Desert Hot Springs's building exposure, zone by zone
56.1% of Desert Hot Springs's 10,203 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 8.8% Direct and 35.2% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone. At 10,203 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Desert Hot Springs compares
Desert Hot Springs ranks lower within California (45th percentile statewide) than its 83rd national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Desert Hot Springs ranks 5,316 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,574 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 860 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Desert Hot Springs and the insurance market
Because Desert Hot Springs is in California, a wildfire-hazard disclosure is legally required before a sale closes here — unusual nationally, since only these two states mandate it. The state's FAIR Plan alone carried 668,609 policies by the end of 2025. Full detail in the disclosure-law guide.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Desert Hot Springs (56.1% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Desert Hot Springs's figures come from
Desert Hot Springs's 83rd-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 Desert Hot Springs's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.