Murrieta, CA
Murrieta, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Murrieta's 32,629 buildings earn a 98th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Murrieta's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 97th percentile nationally.
Where Murrieta's buildings actually sit
68% of Murrieta's 32,629 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 10.6% Direct and 21.3% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone. At 32,629 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Murrieta ranks
Murrieta's 98th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 81st ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 17 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Murrieta ranks 779 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 335 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 301 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Murrieta
Because Murrieta 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Murrieta (68% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Murrieta's 779-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Murrieta, see the exposure-zones guide.