San Bernardino, CA
San Bernardino wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts San Bernardino at the 100th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 66,499 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, San Bernardino's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 99th percentile nationally.
San Bernardino's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of San Bernardino's buildings (68.2% of 66,499) 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. At 66,499 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
San Bernardino against the rest of the country
There's little gap between San Bernardino's 100th national percentile and its 94th percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, San Bernardino ranks 156 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 119 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 100 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in San Bernardino
San Bernardino's 100th-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.
What would actually reduce this score
With 68.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, San Bernardino gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where San Bernardino's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 66,499 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for San Bernardino. The exposure-zones guide covers what San Bernardino's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.