Petaluma, CA
Petaluma, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Petaluma sits at the 91st 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 22,040 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Petaluma at the 93rd 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
USFS classifies 59.1% of Petaluma's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 1.7% Direct and 39.2% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 22,040 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Petaluma against the rest of the country
Petaluma ranks lower within California (63rd percentile statewide) than its 91st national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Petaluma ranks 2,921 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 618 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 583 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
Petaluma's 91st-percentile score lands in California, the only two states requiring a wildfire disclosure at sale. California's surplus-lines homeowners market passed 300,000 policies for the first time in 2025, driven by carriers pulling back from wildfire-exposed areas statewide. The disclosure-law guide covers what it requires.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 59.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Petaluma gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Petaluma's 2,921-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Petaluma, see the exposure-zones guide.