Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Los Angeles at the 98th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 897,893 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Los Angeles's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 96th percentile nationally.
Where Los Angeles's buildings actually sit
84.7% of Los Angeles's 897,893 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 2.9% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 897,893 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Los Angeles ranks
Los Angeles's 98th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 82nd ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 16 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Los Angeles ranks 686 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 279 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Los Angeles
Los Angeles 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 98th-percentile score like Los Angeles's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in Los Angeles
Even with 84.7% of Los Angeles 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.
More on how this number was built
Los Angeles's 98th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Los Angeles, see the exposure-zones guide.