Desert Palms, CA
How exposed is Desert Palms to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Desert Palms lands at the 30th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 4,965 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Desert Palms's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 29th percentile nationally.
Desert Palms's building exposure, zone by zone
99.4% of Desert Palms's 4,965 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 0.6% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Desert Palms against the rest of the country
Inside California, Desert Palms sits at just the 3rd percentile even though it scores 30th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Desert Palms ranks 21,987 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,453 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,523 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Desert Palms
Desert Palms's 30th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 99.4% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Desert Palms gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Desert Palms's 30th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Desert Palms, see the exposure-zones guide.