Santa Nella, CA
Santa Nella, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Santa Nella at the 90th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 701 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Santa Nella at the 92nd percentile, close to its 90th-percentile risk score.
Where Santa Nella's buildings actually sit
701 buildings are counted in Santa Nella, and 85.6% of them are Indirect exposure — ember-driven risk rather than the 14.4% in Direct exposure or the 0% rated Minimal.
Where Santa Nella ranks
Santa Nella's 90th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 62nd ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 28 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Santa Nella ranks 3,112 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 14,643 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 602 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 Nella 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 90th-percentile score like Santa Nella's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Santa Nella (85.6% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Santa Nella's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Santa Nella's 3,112-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Santa Nella's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.