Irvine, CA
Irvine, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Irvine lands at the 88th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 64,034 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Irvine's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 91st percentile nationally.
Irvine's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 67.7% of Irvine's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 4.9% Direct and 27.4% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 64,034 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Irvine against the rest of the country
Irvine's 88th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 58th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 31 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Irvine ranks 3,681 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 121 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 668 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Irvine
Irvine 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 88th-percentile score like Irvine's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Irvine's 67.7% 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 Irvine's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 64,034 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Irvine. The exposure-zones guide covers what Irvine's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.