Malibu, CA
How exposed is Malibu to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Malibu at the 97th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 7,591 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Malibu's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 96th percentile nationally.
Malibu's building exposure, zone by zone
7,591 buildings are counted in Malibu, and 72.8% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 23.6% in Direct exposure or the 3.5% rated Minimal. At 7,591 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Malibu against the rest of the country
Inside California, Malibu sits at just the 81st percentile even though it scores 97th 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, Malibu ranks 840 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,254 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 307 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
Malibu 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 97th-percentile score like Malibu's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 72.8% of Malibu'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.
Where Malibu's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Malibu's 840-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Malibu's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.