Mountain Mesa, CA
Mountain Mesa wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Mountain Mesa at the 98th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 546 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 Mountain Mesa at the 97th percentile, close to its 98th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
86.3% of Mountain Mesa's 546 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 13.7% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Mountain Mesa against the rest of the country
Mountain Mesa's 98th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 83rd ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 15 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mountain Mesa ranks 659 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 16,619 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 272 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
Mountain Mesa 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 98th-percentile score like Mountain Mesa's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Mountain Mesa's 86.3% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Mountain Mesa's figures come from
Mountain Mesa's 98th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mountain Mesa's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.