California Fire Hazard Severity Zones (FHSZ) by county

Hazard is not the same as your insurance risk

A Fire Hazard Severity Zone measures long-term physical wildfire hazard - vegetation, terrain, weather, and fire history - to guide land-use planning, building codes, and defensible-space rules. It is not an insurer's property-level underwriting score or catastrophe model. The California Department of Insurance has stated that CAL FIRE's maps do not by themselves determine insurance rates or availability, so a zone designation is one input among many, not the decision.

When carriers price a home and decide whether to write it, they may evaluate factors such as:

• Roof type and age, and overall construction
• Surrounding vegetation and defensible space
• Slope, terrain, and road access
• Distance from a fire station and available water supply
• Replacement cost and the home's loss history
• Their own proprietary wildfire catastrophe models

Look up any address on the official CAL FIRE Fire Hazard Severity Zone Viewer.

Look up wildfire hazard by county

Use the table below as a reference for how CAL FIRE classifies overall wildfire hazard across California's 58 counties. Remember that this is a planning-level hazard summary, not an insurer's decision or a parcel-level score - select any county for its full profile and coverage options.

Hazard levels are a qualitative county-level summary derived from CAL FIRE data, not parcel-level scores. Check a specific address on the CAL FIRE viewer linked below.

Wildfire exposure makes some California homes hard to place in the standard market. As an independent broker we shop admitted carriers across all 58 counties, and where the market is limited we access surplus lines markets and the California FAIR Plan paired with a difference-in-conditions wrap.

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