Vernon, CA
How exposed is Vernon to wildfire?
Vernon's 1,849 buildings earn a 15th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Vernon at the 22nd national percentile — 8 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Vernon's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 100% of Vernon's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 0% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Vernon compares
There's little gap between Vernon's 15th national percentile and its 1st percentile inside California, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Vernon ranks 26,875 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,913 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 1,555 of 1,570 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for California on its state page.
Vernon and the insurance market
Vernon's 15th-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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Even with 100% of Vernon outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Vernon's 15th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Vernon, see the exposure-zones guide.