Maxwell, CA
Maxwell, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Maxwell at the 40th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 606 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Maxwell's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 39th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Maxwell rates 82.7% Minimal exposure against just 17.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 606 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Maxwell against the rest of the country
Maxwell's 40th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 6th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 34 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Maxwell ranks 19,025 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,745 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,480 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Maxwell
Maxwell 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 40th-percentile score like Maxwell's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Maxwell's 82.7% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Maxwell's 40th-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 Maxwell, see the exposure-zones guide.