Kennedy, CA
Kennedy wildfire risk explained
Kennedy sits at the 74th 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 1,260 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Kennedy's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 76th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 83.6% of Kennedy's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 16.4% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Kennedy against the rest of the country
Inside California, Kennedy sits at just the 31st percentile even though it scores 74th 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, Kennedy ranks 8,342 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,296 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,080 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Kennedy and the insurance market
Because Kennedy 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 83.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Kennedy gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Kennedy's 8,342-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Kennedy, see the exposure-zones guide.