Klamath, CA
Klamath, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Klamath at the 77th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 831 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Klamath at the 77th national percentile — 0 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
Direct exposure dominates in Klamath: 51.3% of its 831 buildings, versus 48.6% Indirect and 0.1% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Klamath compares
Inside California, Klamath sits at just the 36th percentile even though it scores 77th 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, Klamath ranks 7,175 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,330 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,000 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Klamath and the insurance market
Klamath's 77th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Klamath (51.3%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Klamath's 77th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Klamath, see the exposure-zones guide.