Plumas Lake, CA
Plumas Lake, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Plumas Lake sits at the 85th 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 2,448 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Plumas Lake at the 85th national percentile — 1 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 puts 88.5% of Plumas Lake's 2,448 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 11.5% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Plumas Lake ranks
Inside California, Plumas Lake sits at just the 49th percentile even though it scores 85th 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, Plumas Lake ranks 4,880 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,400 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 804 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Plumas Lake
Plumas Lake 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 85th-percentile score like Plumas Lake's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in Plumas Lake
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Plumas Lake (88.5% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Plumas Lake's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Plumas Lake's 4,880-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Plumas Lake's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.