Sutter Creek, CA
Sutter Creek, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Sutter Creek lands at the 96th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 1,569 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Sutter Creek's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 96th percentile nationally.
Where Sutter Creek's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 78.8% of Sutter Creek's 1,569 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 21.2% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
How Sutter Creek compares
Inside California, Sutter Creek sits at just the 76th percentile even though it scores 96th 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, Sutter Creek ranks 1,346 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,888 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 384 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Sutter Creek
Because Sutter Creek 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
Sutter Creek's 78.8% 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.
More on how this number was built
Sutter Creek's 96th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Sutter Creek, see the exposure-zones guide.