Kettleman City, CA
Kettleman City, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Kettleman City's 412 buildings earn a 87th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Kettleman City at the 89th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Kettleman City's buildings (99.8%) 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.
Kettleman City against the rest of the country
Kettleman City's 87th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 54th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 32 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Kettleman City ranks 4,148 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,980 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 719 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
Kettleman City 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 87th-percentile score like Kettleman City's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in Kettleman City
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Kettleman City (99.8% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Kettleman City's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Kettleman City's 4,148-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Kettleman City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.