South Lake Tahoe, CA
South Lake Tahoe wildfire risk explained
South Lake Tahoe's 10,708 buildings earn a 94th-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.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks South Lake Tahoe at the 91st national percentile — 3 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
South Lake Tahoe's building exposure, zone by zone
Indirect exposure is dominant in South Lake Tahoe (56.1% of 10,708 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 22.5% sit in the Direct zone. At 10,708 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
South Lake Tahoe against the rest of the country
South Lake Tahoe's 94th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 70th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 24 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, South Lake Tahoe ranks 1,980 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,482 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 469 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
South Lake Tahoe and the insurance market
South Lake Tahoe 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 94th-percentile score like South Lake Tahoe's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
Hardening a home in South Lake Tahoe
South Lake Tahoe's 56.1% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where South Lake Tahoe's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 10,708 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for South Lake Tahoe. The exposure-zones guide covers what South Lake Tahoe's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.