Hat Creek, CA
Hat Creek wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Hat Creek lands at the 93rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 423 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 Hat Creek at the 92nd percentile, close to its 93rd-percentile risk score.
Hat Creek's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Hat Creek's 423 counted buildings, 100% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Hat Creek against the rest of the country
Inside California, Hat Creek sits at just the 69th percentile even though it scores 93rd 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, Hat Creek ranks 2,071 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,772 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 483 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Hat Creek and the insurance market
Hat Creek's 93rd-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Hat Creek (100%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Hat Creek's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Hat Creek's 2,071-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Hat Creek's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.