El Monte, CA
El Monte, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores El Monte at the 58th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 27,581 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (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 Monte at the 62nd percentile, close to its 58th-percentile risk score.
Where El Monte's buildings actually sit
Most of El Monte's buildings (99.7% of 27,581) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 27,581 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 Monte compares
El Monte's 58th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 16th 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, El Monte ranks 13,260 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 443 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,323 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in El Monte
El Monte 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 58th-percentile score like El Monte's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in El Monte
Even with 99.7% of El Monte 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 El Monte's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind El Monte's 13,260-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what El Monte's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.