Truckee, CA
How exposed is Truckee to wildfire?
Truckee's 13,080 buildings earn a 97th-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.)
Separately from the risk score above, Truckee's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 96th percentile nationally.
Truckee's building exposure, zone by zone
13,080 buildings are counted in Truckee, and 62.9% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0.3% rated Minimal. At 13,080 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Truckee ranks
Truckee's 97th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 80th ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 17 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Truckee ranks 876 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,167 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 314 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Truckee
Truckee 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 97th-percentile score like Truckee's can end up mattering for. More on the disclosure law.
What would actually reduce this score
Because Direct exposure dominates in Truckee (62.9%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
Where Truckee's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 13,080 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Truckee. The exposure-zones guide covers what Truckee's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.