Fruitdale, CA
Fruitdale wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Fruitdale at the 16th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 607 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Fruitdale at the 18th percentile, close to its 16th-percentile risk score.
Fruitdale's building exposure, zone by zone
Fruitdale rates 99.5% Minimal exposure against just 0.5% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 607 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Fruitdale against the rest of the country
Fruitdale scores 16th nationally and 1st within California — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Fruitdale ranks 26,622 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,726 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,551 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Fruitdale
Fruitdale 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 16th-percentile score like Fruitdale's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in Fruitdale
Even with 99.5% of Fruitdale 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 Fruitdale's figures come from
Fruitdale's 16th-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 Fruitdale's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.