Emeryville, CA
How exposed is Emeryville to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Emeryville at the 13th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 1,349 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Emeryville's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 17th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Emeryville rates 99.9% Minimal exposure against just 0.1% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 1,349 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How Emeryville compares
There's little gap between Emeryville's 13th national percentile and its 1st percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Emeryville ranks 27,568 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,833 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,558 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Emeryville and the insurance market
Emeryville's 13th-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
Even with 99.9% of Emeryville 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,349 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Emeryville. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Emeryville, see the exposure-zones guide.