Smith Corner, CA
Smith Corner wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Smith Corner at the 84th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 222 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Smith Corner at the 86th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Smith Corner: 54.1% of its 222 buildings, versus 0% Indirect and 46% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Where Smith Corner ranks
Inside California, Smith Corner sits at just the 46th percentile even though it scores 84th 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, Smith Corner ranks 5,132 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,044 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 843 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Smith Corner and the insurance market
Because Smith Corner 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
Because Direct exposure dominates in Smith Corner (54.1%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Smith Corner's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Smith Corner's 5,132-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Smith Corner's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.