Johannesburg, CA
Johannesburg, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Johannesburg sits at the 54th 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 220 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Johannesburg at the 53rd national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Johannesburg's buildings actually sit
Most of Johannesburg's buildings (56.4%) 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 Johannesburg ranks
Johannesburg's 54th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 13th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 41 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Johannesburg ranks 14,519 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,109 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,360 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Johannesburg and the insurance market
Because Johannesburg is in California, a wildfire-hazard disclosure is legally required before a sale closes here — unusual nationally, since only these two states mandate it. The state's FAIR Plan alone carried 668,609 policies by the end of 2025. Full detail in the disclosure-law guide.
Hardening a home in Johannesburg
Because 56.4% of Johannesburg'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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Johannesburg's 14,519-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Johannesburg, see the exposure-zones guide.