El Centro, CA
El Centro wildfire risk explained
El Centro's 12,942 buildings earn a 45th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts El Centro at the 47th percentile, close to its 45th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
98.2% of El Centro's 12,942 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 1.8% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 12,942 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How El Centro compares
El Centro ranks lower within California (8th percentile statewide) than its 45th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, El Centro ranks 17,354 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,176 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,451 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
El Centro and the insurance market
El Centro sits in California, one of two states that legally require a wildfire-risk disclosure at sale. California's FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort, ended 2025 with 668,609 residential policies after adding 21,859 in Q4 alone — the kind of market shift a 45th-percentile score like El Centro's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
El Centro's 98.2% 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 12,942 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for El Centro. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond El Centro, see the exposure-zones guide.