Soquel, CA
How exposed is Soquel to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Soquel at the 77th national percentile for risk to structures, well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a score built from 4,581 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Soquel at the 77th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Soquel's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in Soquel (75.2% of 4,581 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 24.8% sit in the Direct zone.
How Soquel compares
Soquel's 77th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 36th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 41 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Soquel ranks 7,273 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,721 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,007 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 Soquel 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
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Soquel (75.2% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where Soquel's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Soquel's 7,273-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Soquel's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.