Rancho Santa Fe, CA
How exposed is Rancho Santa Fe to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Rancho Santa Fe lands at the 76th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 2,526 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Rancho Santa Fe at the 75th percentile, close to its 76th-percentile risk score.
Rancho Santa Fe's building exposure, zone by zone
60.7% of Rancho Santa Fe's 2,526 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 1,533 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 33.7% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 5.7% are Minimal.
Rancho Santa Fe against the rest of the country
Inside California, Rancho Santa Fe sits at just the 34th percentile even though it scores 76th 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, Rancho Santa Fe ranks 7,650 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,250 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,038 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
Rancho Santa Fe's 76th-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 Rancho Santa Fe
With 60.7% of Rancho Santa Fe 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.
Where Rancho Santa Fe's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Rancho Santa Fe's 7,650-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Rancho Santa Fe's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.