Pajaro Dunes, CA
Pajaro Dunes wildfire risk explained
Pajaro Dunes's 346 buildings earn a 36th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Pajaro Dunes's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 38th percentile nationally.
Where Pajaro Dunes's buildings actually sit
Pajaro Dunes rates 87.6% Minimal exposure against just 12.4% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 346 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Where Pajaro Dunes ranks
Inside California, Pajaro Dunes sits at just the 4th percentile even though it scores 36th 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, Pajaro Dunes ranks 20,287 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,420 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,508 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 Pajaro Dunes 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 Pajaro Dunes
Even with 87.6% of Pajaro Dunes outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Pajaro Dunes's 20,287-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Pajaro Dunes, see the exposure-zones guide.