McFarland, CA
McFarland wildfire risk explained
USFS scores McFarland at the 82nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 3,317 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts McFarland at the 84th percentile, close to its 82nd-percentile risk score.
Where McFarland's buildings actually sit
McFarland rates 72.5% Minimal exposure against just 7.4% Direct and 20.1% Indirect — of 3,317 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
How McFarland compares
McFarland's 82nd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 44th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 39 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, McFarland ranks 5,603 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,022 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 887 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
McFarland and the insurance market
McFarland's 82nd-percentile score lands in California, the only two states requiring a wildfire disclosure at sale. California's surplus-lines homeowners market passed 300,000 policies for the first time in 2025, driven by carriers pulling back from wildfire-exposed areas statewide. The disclosure-law guide covers what it requires.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
McFarland's 72.5% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 3,317 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for McFarland. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond McFarland, see the exposure-zones guide.