Salton City, CA
How exposed is Salton City to wildfire?
Salton City's 2,199 buildings earn a 4th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Salton City at the 4th national percentile — 0 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
Only 20% of Salton City's 2,199 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 80% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Salton City ranks
There's little gap between Salton City's 4th national percentile and its 0th percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Salton City ranks 30,403 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 6,936 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,568 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
Salton City's 4th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Salton City's 80% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Salton City's figures come from
Salton City's 4th-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 Salton City's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.