Willow Creek, CA
Willow Creek, CA's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Willow Creek at the 98th national percentile for risk to structures, in USFS's highest wildfire-risk band nationally — a score built from 1,577 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 Willow Creek at the 98th percentile, close to its 98th-percentile risk score.
Where Willow Creek's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 85.4% of Willow Creek's buildings as Direct exposure, higher than its 14.5% Indirect share and far above its 0.1% Minimal share — a profile where 1,346 structures sit close enough to vegetation that lot clearing matters most.
How Willow Creek compares
Inside California, Willow Creek sits at just the 81st percentile even though it scores 98th 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, Willow Creek ranks 755 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 8,845 by building count (1 is largest). Within California alone, it ranks 296 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 Willow 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Willow Creek's 85.4% 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.
Where Willow Creek's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Willow Creek's 755-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Willow Creek's dominant direct exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.