Potter Valley, CA
How exposed is Potter Valley to wildfire?
Potter Valley's 604 buildings earn a 96th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Potter Valley's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 96th percentile nationally.
Potter Valley's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Potter Valley: 90.2% of its 604 buildings, versus 9.8% Indirect and 0% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Where Potter Valley ranks
Potter Valley's 96th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 76th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 20 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Potter Valley ranks 1,284 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,781 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 377 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Potter Valley and the insurance market
Because Potter Valley 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 90.2% of Potter Valley in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Potter Valley's 1,284-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Potter Valley, see the exposure-zones guide.