Highlands, CA
Highlands wildfire risk explained
Highlands sits at the 63rd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 872 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 Highlands at the 63rd percentile, close to its 63rd-percentile risk score.
Highlands's building exposure, zone by zone
872 buildings are counted in Highlands, and 79.6% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 20.4% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
How Highlands compares
Inside California, Highlands sits at just the 21st percentile even though it scores 63rd 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, Highlands ranks 11,715 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,969 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,244 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Highlands's 63rd-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 79.6% of Highlands's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Highlands's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Highlands's 11,715-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Highlands's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.