WildfireRiskFinder

San Simeon, CA

How exposed is San Simeon to wildfire?

Very High
96thpercentile nationally

USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts San Simeon at the 96th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 283 actual buildings. (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 Simeon at the 97th percentile, close to its 96th-percentile risk score.

San Simeon's building exposure, zone by zone

283Total buildings
26.5%Direct exposure
73.1%Indirect exposure
0.4%Minimal exposure

283 buildings are counted in San Simeon, and 73.1% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 26.5% in Direct exposure or the 0.4% rated Minimal.

Where San Simeon ranks

San Simeon's 96th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 76th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 20 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, San Simeon ranks 1,286 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,085 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 379 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 Simeon's 96th-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

Because 73.1% of San Simeon's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.

Where San Simeon's figures come from

San Simeon's 96th-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 San Simeon's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.