Fairmead, CA
How exposed is Fairmead to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Fairmead lands at the 91st percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 776 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 Fairmead at the 92nd percentile, close to its 91st-percentile risk score.
Fairmead's building exposure, zone by zone
92.9% of Fairmead's 776 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 721 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 2.1% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 5% are Minimal.
How Fairmead compares
Fairmead's 91st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 65th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 27 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fairmead ranks 2,699 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,850 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 553 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Fairmead and the insurance market
Because Fairmead is in California, a wildfire-hazard disclosure is legally required before a sale closes here — unusual nationally, since only these two states mandate it. The state's FAIR Plan alone carried 668,609 policies by the end of 2025. Full detail in the disclosure-law guide.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Fairmead (92.9%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 776 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Fairmead. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Fairmead, see the exposure-zones guide.