Santa Rosa, CA
Santa Rosa wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Santa Rosa lands at the 79th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 60,802 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Santa Rosa at the 82nd national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Santa Rosa's building exposure, zone by zone
56.5% of Santa Rosa's 60,802 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 6.7% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 60,802 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Santa Rosa against the rest of the country
Santa Rosa ranks lower within California (39th percentile statewide) than its 79th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Santa Rosa ranks 6,612 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 128 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 962 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa 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 79th-percentile score like Santa Rosa's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 56.5% of Santa Rosa 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.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Santa Rosa's 6,612-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Santa Rosa, see the exposure-zones guide.