Jamestown, CA
How exposed is Jamestown to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Jamestown at the 97th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 1,771 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 Jamestown at the 96th percentile, close to its 97th-percentile risk score.
Where Jamestown's buildings actually sit
Most of Jamestown's buildings (54.1%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Jamestown ranks
Jamestown's 97th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 79th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 18 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Jamestown ranks 1,031 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,148 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 335 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Jamestown and the insurance market
Jamestown's 97th-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
Jamestown's 54.1% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Jamestown's figures come from
Jamestown's 97th-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 Jamestown's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.