Dos Palos, CA
Dos Palos wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Dos Palos lands at the 51st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 2,109 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Dos Palos at the 49th percentile, close to its 51st-percentile risk score.
Where Dos Palos's buildings actually sit
Only 6.9% of Dos Palos's 2,109 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 93.1% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Dos Palos ranks
Dos Palos's 51st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 11th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 40 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dos Palos ranks 15,528 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,168 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,399 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Dos Palos
Dos Palos's 51st-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.
Hardening a home in Dos Palos
Even with 93.1% of Dos Palos outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Dos Palos's figures come from
Dos Palos's 51st-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 Dos Palos's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.