Rio Dell, CA
How exposed is Rio Dell to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Rio Dell at the 55th national percentile for risk to structures, modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a score built from 1,682 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Rio Dell at the 57th national percentile — 2 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 81.6% of Rio Dell's 1,682 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 18.4% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Rio Dell against the rest of the country
Rio Dell's 55th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 14th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 41 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Rio Dell ranks 14,174 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,485 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,349 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Rio Dell and the insurance market
Rio Dell 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 55th-percentile score like Rio Dell's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Rio Dell's 81.6% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Rio Dell's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Rio Dell's 14,174-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Rio Dell's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.