Signal Hill, CA
How exposed is Signal Hill to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Signal Hill at the 38th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 3,473 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Signal Hill at the 44th percentile, close to its 38th-percentile risk score.
Signal Hill's building exposure, zone by zone
99.7% of Signal Hill's 3,473 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 0.3% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Signal Hill against the rest of the country
Signal Hill's 38th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 5th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 32 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Signal Hill ranks 19,686 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,804 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,489 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Signal Hill
Signal Hill 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 38th-percentile score like Signal Hill's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 99.7% of Signal Hill 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 Signal Hill's figures come from
Signal Hill's 38th-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 Signal Hill's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.