Grimes, CA
Grimes, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Grimes sits at the 48th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 199 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Grimes at the 46th percentile, close to its 48th-percentile risk score.
Grimes's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Grimes's buildings (78.9% of 199) 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.
Where Grimes ranks
Inside California, Grimes sits at just the 9th percentile even though it scores 48th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Grimes ranks 16,537 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,877 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,429 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Grimes and the insurance market
Grimes's 48th-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
With 78.9% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Grimes gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Grimes's 16,537-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Grimes, see the exposure-zones guide.