Lake Sherwood, CA
How exposed is Lake Sherwood to wildfire?
Lake Sherwood's 824 buildings earn a 96th-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.)
Separately from the risk score above, Lake Sherwood's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 94th percentile nationally.
Lake Sherwood's building exposure, zone by zone
824 buildings are counted in Lake Sherwood, and 52.7% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 1.9% rated Minimal.
Where Lake Sherwood ranks
Lake Sherwood's 96th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 76th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 20 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake Sherwood ranks 1,283 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,405 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 376 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Lake Sherwood
Lake Sherwood's 96th-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
Lake Sherwood's 52.7% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Lake Sherwood's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Lake Sherwood's 1,283-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lake Sherwood's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.