Susanville, CA
Susanville, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Susanville at the 95th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally), a figure built from 4,569 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Susanville at the 95th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Susanville's building exposure, zone by zone
92.7% of Susanville's 4,569 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 7.2% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
How Susanville compares
Susanville ranks lower within California (75th percentile statewide) than its 95th national percentile suggests alone — a calmer spot in a state where wildfire risk generally runs high. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Susanville ranks 1,474 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 3,731 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 399 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Susanville
Susanville 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 95th-percentile score like Susanville's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 92.7% of Susanville's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Susanville's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,569 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Susanville. The exposure-zones guide covers what Susanville's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.