Pleasanton, CA
How exposed is Pleasanton to wildfire?
USFS scores Pleasanton at the 93rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 23,484 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Pleasanton's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 94th percentile nationally.
Where Pleasanton's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 48.8% of Pleasanton's 23,484 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 7% Direct and 44.1% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 23,484 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Pleasanton compares
Pleasanton's 93rd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 69th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 24 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pleasanton ranks 2,166 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 553 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 490 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
Pleasanton 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 93rd-percentile score like Pleasanton's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Pleasanton (48.8% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 23,484 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pleasanton. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Pleasanton, see the exposure-zones guide.