Marin City, CA
Marin City wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Marin City at the 80th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 392 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Marin City at the 79th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Marin City's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 88.8% of Marin City's 392 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 11.2% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Marin City ranks
Marin City's 80th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 40th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 40 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Marin City ranks 6,390 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,362 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 938 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
Marin City 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 80th-percentile score like Marin City's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Marin City's 88.8% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Marin City's figures come from
Marin City's 80th-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 Marin City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.