San Bruno, CA
San Bruno wildfire risk explained
San Bruno's 11,533 buildings earn a 68th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — well above the national norm for wildfire risk. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts San Bruno at the 67th percentile, close to its 68th-percentile risk score.
San Bruno's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 50.3% of San Bruno's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 2.1% Direct and 47.7% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one. At 11,533 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
San Bruno against the rest of the country
San Bruno ranks lower within California (26th percentile statewide) than its 68th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, San Bruno ranks 10,013 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,361 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,169 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
San Bruno 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 68th-percentile score like San Bruno's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 50.3% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, San Bruno 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 Bruno's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind San Bruno's 10,013-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what San Bruno's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.