Whitley Gardens, CA
How exposed is Whitley Gardens to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Whitley Gardens at the 85th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 301 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Whitley Gardens at the 88th percentile, close to its 85th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 94% of Whitley Gardens's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 6% Indirect share and far above its 0% Minimal share — a profile where 283 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Whitley Gardens compares
Whitley Gardens's 85th national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 51st ranking inside California does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 35 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Whitley Gardens ranks 4,626 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,592 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 777 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
Because Whitley Gardens 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 94% of Whitley Gardens in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
Where Whitley Gardens's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Whitley Gardens's 4,626-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Whitley Gardens's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.