Los Altos, CA
Los Altos wildfire risk explained
Los Altos's 11,738 buildings earn a 61st-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Los Altos at the 61st national percentile — 1 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 Los Altos's buildings (71.2% of 11,738) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure. At 11,738 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Los Altos against the rest of the country
Los Altos's 61st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 19th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 42 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Los Altos ranks 12,345 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,333 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,270 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
Because Los Altos 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
Even with 71.2% of Los Altos outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Los Altos's figures come from
Los Altos's 61st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Los Altos's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.