Wildfire risk in Imperial County spans a wide range across the places we scored. The overall score runs from 11.7 to 77.8, with a middle value of 39.1. That means conditions can look very different from one part of the county to another.
We scored 165 points across Imperial County on the same 0–100 scale a Satelife address report uses, and they do not land in one place. 1% of them come out Very High, while 22% are Low. Which end your own parcel sits at is not something a county map can tell you.
FEMA NRI also rates Imperial County: all-hazards risk Relatively High · social vulnerability Very High · community resilience Very Low · annualised wildfire frequency 0.0008.
Sources: FEMA National Risk Index 1.20.0 (Dec 2025), county record · USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities v2.0, mean of the grid cells inside the county. Both describe the county as a whole, never an address in it.
What does your Imperial County address score?
A county range shows the spread. Your parcel sits somewhere inside it — the report says where, and what to do about it.
Free to request · PDF report with a 0–100 score, the drivers behind it, and a mitigation plan
Most scored places fell in the Moderate tier, with 114 points there. Low came next with 36 points, while High had 14 and Very High had 1.
For county-wide context, FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Imperial County’s wildfire risk as Relatively Low and its wildfire expected annual loss as Relatively Low. In the same FEMA system, the county’s all-hazards risk is rated Relatively High.
Since 1984, fire perimeters in Imperial County add up to 49 incidents and 8,717 acres. That equals 0.3% of the county area burned over that period.
The largest fire listed here is Island Lake (2013), at 2,109 acres.
The most recent large fire is West Main (2023), at 1,028 acres.
Fire perimeters coloured by decade. Select a perimeter for its name, year and size.
Perimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · WFIGS Interagency Perimeters · largest on record: Island Lake 2013. Perimeters are simplified for display; acreage is the figure the source records.
Among larger population centers, scored risk is lower in El Centro (15.6) and sits somewhat higher in Calexico (20.5) and Brawley (21.1).
Several smaller communities score higher, including Niland (38.7), Slab City (43.4), and Winterhaven (49.2). That spread is why local address-level context matters inside the same county.
The score is the median of the sampled points nearest that community — a community-scale indicator, not a score for any individual property in it. Population comes from the community's own record where the source carries one.
Terrain scores range from 5.0 in Heber to 65.0 near Ocotillo, with a county middle of 20.0. In plain terms, slope and landform exposure are much stronger in some areas than others.
Vegetation and fuels are generally higher than terrain in this county: scores run from 5.0 near Westmorland up to 80.0 in Heber, with a middle of 70.0. That pattern contributes to wildfire risk in places where burnable cover is more continuous.
Fire-weather scores are consistently elevated across the places scored, ranging from 57.0 in Salton City to 67.0 near Slab City, with a middle value of 59.3.
A separate USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities product reports a mean annual burn probability of 0.04% and a 90th-percentile cell value of 0.11%. It also shows 36.2% of the county as burnable in that model; this is a modeled burn-probability view, not a fire-weather score.
Risk is not uniform between communities. In the places scored, El Centro is on the lower end at 15.6, while Winterhaven is higher at 49.2.
You also see big shifts within local areas. The highest scored location is near Ocotillo at 77.8, while the lowest scored location is in Salton City at 11.7, even though Salton City’s community middle score is 37.1.
Each bar is what one part of the score covers across Imperial County, on the same 0–100 scale. A long bar is a part of the risk that depends on where you are; a short one is the same almost everywhere.
The tick on each bar is the middle value. Tier boundaries — Moderate at 25, High at 50, Very High at 75 — are the faint lines behind them.
| Layer | Min | Median | Max | Lowest place | Highest place | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terrain | 5 | 20 | 65 | Heber | near Ocotillo | 165 |
| Vegetation & fuels | 5 | 70 | 80 | near Westmorland | Heber | 165 |
| Hazard zone | 10 | 10 | 53.1 | near Ocotillo | near Salton City | 165 |
| Fire history | 5 | 5 | 95 | near Ocotillo | Winterhaven | 165 |
| Fire weather | 57 | 59.3 | 67 | Salton City | near Slab City | 165 |
| Composite | 11.7 | 39.1 | 77.8 | Salton City | near Ocotillo | 165 |
Independently of Satelife's layers, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities grid puts the county's mean annual burn probability at 0.04% (90th percentile cell: 0.11%), with a mean conditional flame length of 1.61 ft. 36% of the 33,477 grid cells inside the county carry burnable fuel at all.
Source: USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities v2.0 (ImageServer, county extent).
CAL FIRE has no mapped Fire Hazard Severity Zone at 92 of the 165 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas, and most of this county is state or federal land. At 30 of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead; at the remaining 62 the hazard weight is renormalised away rather than scored as low.
165 sample points on a ~2.3 km grid, plus one at the centre of each community, weighted with the Satelife county profile v1 · median layer coverage 100%. Scores are 0–100 and comparable within the county, not across states.
For property context, hazard-zone scores are low in many places, with a middle value of 10.0, but they rise to 53.1 near Salton City. So this factor can change a lot by location.
Fire-history scores are low in many scored places (middle 5.0), but they reach 95.0 in Winterhaven. This layer reflects where past fire footprints are more present and where they are less present.
Find out where your Imperial County parcel sits
Slope, the fuel touching the structure, the road out, the fire history within a mile — measured at your address, not averaged across the county.
Free to request · PDF report with a 0–100 score, the drivers behind it, and a mitigation plan
Every one of the 23 ZIP areas that touch Imperial County — we run address-level reports in all of them. They are grouped by the median score of the points we sampled inside each, which is a neighbourhood-scale indicator and not a score for any property: two homes in the same ZIP routinely land in different tiers.
Moderate 12 ZIPs
No sampled point inside 7 ZIPs
85328 · 85364 Winterhaven · 85365 · 91934 Ocotillo · 92036 · 92222 Winterhaven · 92225
Grouped from 16 of 23 ZIP areas — the rest had no sample point fall inside them. The community shown is the nearest mapped place to the ZIP's centre.
ZIP areas are Census 2020 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas intersecting the county boundary.
No. Scores in the places we scored range from 11.7 to 77.8, so risk conditions vary substantially by location.
Since 1984, 49 fire perimeters have burned 8,717 acres in the county, or 0.3% of county area. The largest listed fire is Island Lake (2013), and the most recent large fire is West Main (2023).
FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Imperial County’s wildfire risk as Relatively Low and wildfire expected annual loss as Relatively Low. FEMA’s all-hazards risk rating for the county is Relatively High.
Not necessarily. Fire-weather scores are high and fairly tight across the county’s scored places (57.0 to 67.0), while overall wildfire risk still varies because other factors differ by location.
A county range shows the spread. An address-level Satelife report shows where in that spread your property actually sits — PDF, per-layer score, and a prioritized mitigation plan.
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