Phelan, CA
How exposed is Phelan to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Phelan at the 86th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 8,541 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Phelan's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 84th percentile nationally.
Where Phelan's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 87.2% of Phelan's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 0.1% Indirect share and far above its 12.7% Minimal share — a profile where 7,448 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most. At 8,541 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Phelan compares
Inside California, Phelan sits at just the 53rd percentile even though it scores 86th 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, Phelan ranks 4,310 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,945 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 737 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Phelan and the insurance market
Phelan's 86th-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.
Hardening a home in Phelan
Phelan's 87.2% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
Where Phelan's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 8,541 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Phelan. The exposure-zones guide covers what Phelan's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.