East Nicolaus, CA
East Nicolaus, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, East Nicolaus lands at the 71st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 244 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 East Nicolaus at the 71st percentile, close to its 71st-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
244 buildings are counted in East Nicolaus, and 83.6% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 13.1% rated Minimal.
Where East Nicolaus ranks
East Nicolaus's 71st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 29th 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, East Nicolaus ranks 9,102 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,323 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,117 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
East Nicolaus and the insurance market
East Nicolaus's 71st-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
East Nicolaus's 83.6% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where East Nicolaus's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 244 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for East Nicolaus. The exposure-zones guide covers what East Nicolaus's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.