North Highlands, CA
North Highlands, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
North Highlands sits at the 62nd percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 14,198 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks North Highlands at the 66th national percentile — 4 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
North Highlands's building exposure, zone by zone
North Highlands rates 95.7% Minimal exposure against just 4.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 14,198 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 14,198 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How North Highlands compares
Inside California, North Highlands sits at just the 20th percentile even though it scores 62nd 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, North Highlands ranks 11,968 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,055 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,257 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in North Highlands
Because North Highlands 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.
Hardening a home in North Highlands
With 95.7% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, North Highlands gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where North Highlands's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind North Highlands's 11,968-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what North Highlands's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.