Sierra City, CA
Sierra City, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Sierra City at the 99th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 338 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sierra City's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 98th percentile nationally.
Sierra City's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 72.8% of Sierra City's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 27.2% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 246 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Sierra City compares
Sierra City scores 99th nationally and 92nd within California — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Sierra City ranks 220 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 20,618 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 128 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sierra City
Because Sierra City is in California, a wildfire-hazard disclosure is legally required before a sale closes here — unusual nationally, since only these two states mandate it. The state's FAIR Plan alone carried 668,609 policies by the end of 2025. Full detail in the disclosure-law guide.
What would actually reduce this score
Sierra City's 72.8% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Sierra City's 220-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Sierra City, see the exposure-zones guide.