National City, CA
How exposed is National City to wildfire?
National City's 11,696 buildings earn a 49th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks National City at the 51st national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 0.2% of National City's 11,696 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 99.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 11,696 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
National City against the rest of the country
Inside California, National City sits at just the 10th percentile even though it scores 49th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, National City ranks 16,035 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,338 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,417 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 National City 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
National City's 99.8% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where National City's figures come from
National City's 49th-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 National City's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.