Soda Bay, CA
How exposed is Soda Bay to wildfire?
Soda Bay's 813 buildings earn a 100th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Soda Bay's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 100th percentile nationally.
Soda Bay's building exposure, zone by zone
58.8% of Soda Bay's 813 buildings sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone, roughly 478 structures close enough to burnable vegetation for flame contact, not just embers — 37.8% fall in the Indirect, ember-only zone and 3.4% are Minimal.
Where Soda Bay ranks
There's little gap between Soda Bay's 100th national percentile and its 96th percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Soda Bay ranks 106 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,517 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 70 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Because Soda Bay 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.
Hardening a home in Soda Bay
Soda Bay's 58.8% 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 813 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Soda Bay. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Soda Bay, see the exposure-zones guide.