Lower Lake, CA
Lower Lake wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Lower Lake lands at the 99th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 1,232 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Lower Lake's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 99th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
1,232 buildings are counted in Lower Lake, and 62.9% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
Lower Lake against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Lower Lake's 99th national percentile and its 91st percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lower Lake ranks 249 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,457 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 140 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Lower Lake and the insurance market
Because Lower Lake 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.
Hardening a home in Lower Lake
Lower Lake's 62.9% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,232 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Lower Lake. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Lower Lake, see the exposure-zones guide.