Mountain Ranch, CA
Mountain Ranch, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Mountain Ranch at the 94th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 368 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 Ranch at the 93rd percentile, close to its 94th-percentile risk score.
Mountain Ranch's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Mountain Ranch: 95.4% of its 368 buildings, versus 4.6% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Mountain Ranch compares
Mountain Ranch's 94th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 71st ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 23 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mountain Ranch ranks 1,942 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,898 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 461 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Mountain Ranch and the insurance market
Mountain Ranch 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 94th-percentile score like Mountain Ranch's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Mountain Ranch (95.4%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Mountain Ranch's figures come from
Mountain Ranch's 94th-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 Ranch's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.