Nevada City, CA
How exposed is Nevada City to wildfire?
Nevada City sits at the 99th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,574 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Nevada City at the 98th percentile, close to its 99th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
1,574 buildings are counted in Nevada City, and 67.1% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 32.9% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Nevada City against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Nevada City's 99th national percentile and its 87th percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Nevada City ranks 437 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,865 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 207 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
Nevada City 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 99th-percentile score like Nevada City's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Nevada City (67.1% 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 Nevada City's 437-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Nevada City, see the exposure-zones guide.