Richmond, CA
How exposed is Richmond to wildfire?
USFS scores Richmond at the 85th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 35,154 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Richmond's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 86th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
76.8% of Richmond's 35,154 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 2.4% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 35,154 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Richmond against the rest of the country
Inside California, Richmond sits at just the 50th 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, Richmond ranks 4,660 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 306 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 779 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Richmond and the insurance market
Because Richmond 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 76.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Richmond gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Richmond's 85th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Richmond, see the exposure-zones guide.