Mather, CA
Mather, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Mather at the 90th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 1,786 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Mather's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 92nd percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS puts 73% of Mather's 1,786 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 27% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Mather against the rest of the country
Inside California, Mather sits at just the 60th percentile even though it scores 90th 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, Mather ranks 3,302 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,107 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 625 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Mather
Mather 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 90th-percentile score like Mather's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Mather (73% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Mather's 3,302-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Mather, see the exposure-zones guide.