Salton Sea Beach, CA
Salton Sea Beach wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Salton Sea Beach lands at the 9th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 411 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 Salton Sea Beach at the 13th percentile, close to its 9th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Salton Sea Beach's buildings (99.8% of 411) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
Salton Sea Beach against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Salton Sea Beach's 9th 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 Sea Beach ranks 28,700 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,002 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,564 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Salton Sea Beach and the insurance market
Salton Sea Beach's 9th-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 Salton Sea Beach
With 99.8% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Salton Sea Beach gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Salton Sea Beach's figures come from
Salton Sea Beach's 9th-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 Sea Beach's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.