Vallecito, CA
Vallecito, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Vallecito lands at the 99th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a figure built from its 450 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Vallecito at the 99th percentile, close to its 99th-percentile risk score.
Vallecito's building exposure, zone by zone
Of Vallecito's 450 counted buildings, 99.8% carry Direct exposure and only 0% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Vallecito against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Vallecito's 99th national percentile and its 88th percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Vallecito ranks 409 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 18,272 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 199 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
Vallecito's 99th-percentile score lands in California, the only two states requiring a wildfire disclosure at sale. California's surplus-lines homeowners market passed 300,000 policies for the first time in 2025, driven by carriers pulling back from wildfire-exposed areas statewide. The disclosure-law guide covers what it requires.
Hardening a home in Vallecito
Vallecito's 99.8% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 450 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Vallecito. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Vallecito, see the exposure-zones guide.