Scotia, CA
Scotia wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Scotia lands at the 56th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 426 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Scotia at the 57th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Scotia's buildings actually sit
Most of Scotia's buildings (99.8%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Scotia compares
Inside California, Scotia sits at just the 15th percentile even though it scores 56th nationally — the state's overall wildfire exposure is high enough to make this a relatively quiet corner of it. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Scotia ranks 13,825 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,725 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,339 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Scotia and the insurance market
Scotia's 56th-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.
Hardening a home in Scotia
Because 99.8% of Scotia'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 Scotia's figures come from
Scotia's 56th-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 Scotia's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.