Montague, CA
How exposed is Montague to wildfire?
USFS scores Montague at the 91st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 894 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Montague's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 94th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
69.2% of Montague's 894 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 30.8% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Montague compares
Montague's 91st national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 65th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 27 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Montague ranks 2,703 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 12,775 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 557 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
Because Montague is in California, a wildfire-hazard disclosure is legally required before a sale closes here — unusual nationally, since only these two states mandate it. The state's FAIR Plan alone carried 668,609 policies by the end of 2025. Full detail in the disclosure-law guide.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Montague (69.2% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Montague's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Montague's 2,703-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Montague's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.