Fresno, CA
Fresno wildfire risk explained
Fresno's 171,911 buildings earn a 78th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Fresno's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 80th percentile nationally.
Where Fresno's buildings actually sit
Only 2.8% of Fresno's 171,911 buildings carry Direct exposure and 11.2% carry Indirect; the remaining 86% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 171,911 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Fresno ranks
Fresno's 78th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 38th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 41 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fresno ranks 6,800 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 33 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 975 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Fresno and the insurance market
Because Fresno 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.
Hardening a home in Fresno
Fresno's 86% 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.
Where Fresno's figures come from
Fresno's 78th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Fresno's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.