St. Helena, CA
St. Helena, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores St. Helena at the 85th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 3,461 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks St. Helena at the 84th national percentile — 1 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where St. Helena's buildings actually sit
Most of St. Helena's buildings (88.1%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
St. Helena against the rest of the country
Inside California, St. Helena sits at just the 50th percentile even though it scores 85th 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, St. Helena ranks 4,719 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,826 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 788 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 St. Helena 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in St. Helena (88.1% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
Where St. Helena's figures come from
St. Helena's 85th-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 St. Helena's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.