Riverbank, CA
Riverbank, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Riverbank lands at the 85th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 7,852 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Riverbank at the 86th 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 56.5% of Riverbank's 7,852 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 4.5% Direct and 39% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to. At 7,852 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Riverbank compares
Inside California, Riverbank 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, Riverbank ranks 4,689 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,162 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 782 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Riverbank and the insurance market
Because Riverbank 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
Riverbank's 56.5% 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 Riverbank's figures come from
Riverbank's 85th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Riverbank's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.