Montebello, CA
Montebello, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Montebello at the 61st national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 17,365 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Montebello at the 65th percentile, close to its 61st-percentile risk score.
Where Montebello's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 99.5% of Montebello's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 0.6% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 17,365 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Montebello against the rest of the country
Montebello ranks lower within California (19th percentile statewide) than its 61st national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Montebello ranks 12,185 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 819 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,268 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Montebello and the insurance market
Montebello 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 61st-percentile score like Montebello's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in Montebello
With 99.5% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Montebello gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Montebello's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 17,365 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Montebello. The exposure-zones guide covers what Montebello's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.