Ladera Ranch, CA
Ladera Ranch, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Ladera Ranch lands at the 86th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 5,565 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Ladera Ranch's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 89th percentile nationally.
Ladera Ranch's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS puts 96% of Ladera Ranch's 5,565 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 4% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 5,565 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Ladera Ranch against the rest of the country
Inside California, Ladera Ranch sits at just the 51st percentile even though it scores 86th 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, Ladera Ranch ranks 4,530 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,097 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 763 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Ladera Ranch and the insurance market
Ladera Ranch's 86th-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.
Hardening a home in Ladera Ranch
Because 96% of Ladera Ranch'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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 5,565 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Ladera Ranch. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Ladera Ranch, see the exposure-zones guide.