Santa Monica, CA
How exposed is Santa Monica to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Santa Monica at the 94th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 22,014 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Santa Monica at the 92nd national percentile — 2 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Santa Monica's buildings actually sit
Most of Santa Monica's buildings (95.1% of 22,014) 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 22,014 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Santa Monica against the rest of the country
Santa Monica's 94th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 71st ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 23 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Santa Monica ranks 1,910 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 622 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 457 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
Santa Monica's 94th-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
Even with 95.1% of Santa Monica outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Santa Monica's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 22,014 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Santa Monica. The exposure-zones guide covers what Santa Monica's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.