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Inyo County, California

Wildfire risk in Inyo County: where it is highest, and why

Wildfire risk in Inyo County varies a lot by location. The overall scores in the places we scored run from 36.1 in unincorporated Inyo County to 75.6 near Big Pine / Tovowahamatü, with a middle value of 49.2.

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Inyo County — the largest fires on record, at their perimeter centres, with the county’s main communities. Select a marker for its detail.
At a glance

Half of Inyo County scores Moderate or worse

We scored 156 points across Inyo 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 56% are Moderate. Which end your own parcel sits at is not something a county map can tell you.

Very High 1% · 1 of 156 points High 43% · 67 of 156 points Moderate 56% · 88 of 156 points
Safest end we measured 36.1 near unincorporated Inyo County · Moderate
Middle of the county 49.2 Moderate — half of Inyo County is above this
Most exposed end we measured 75.6 near Big Pine / Tovowahamatü · Very High

And the federal models agree it is a fire county

Relatively Low FEMA National Risk Index — wildfire risk rating · index score 83.7 / 100
$429k / yr FEMA NRI — expected annual loss from wildfire · rated Relatively Low
0.09% USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities — mean annual burn probability · 90th-percentile cell 0.23%
4.18 ft USFS WRC — mean conditional flame length · 93% of the county carries burnable fuel

FEMA NRI also rates Inyo County: all-hazards risk Relatively Low · social vulnerability Very High · community resilience Relatively Low · annualised wildfire frequency 0.0023.

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 Inyo 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

Local context

What the data says about Inyo County

Most scored locations fall in the Moderate tier, with 88 points. Another 67 points are in High.

Only 1 point is in Very High, and none are in Low.

Fire record

Where the fires actually were

Since 1984, fires have burned 175,987 acres in Inyo County, and 2.7% of the county has burned in that period. The record includes 125 fire perimeters.

The largest listed fire is Oak (2007), at 27,063 acres.

The most recent large fire is Rock (2026), at 11,737 acres.

Another major event in this list is Taboose (2019), which reached 10,268 acres.

125 mapped fire perimeters centred in the county since 1984
175,987 acres inside those perimeters since 1984
2.7% of the county's area, as a share of 26,357.2 km²
Rock 2026 most recent large fire on record
Named fires on record
  • Oak Fire200727,063 acres
  • Rock Fire202611,737 acres
  • Taboose Fire201910,268 acres
  • China Lake Fire200510,358 acres
  • Calico Fire20069,278 acres
  • Horseshoe Fire20244,530 acres
  • John Fire20115,800 acres
  • Sage Fire20076,463 acres

Perimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · WFIGS Interagency Perimeters · largest on record: Oak 2007. Perimeters are simplified for display; acreage is the figure the source records.

Communities

Where in the county you are matters most

Among the named communities shown here, Bishop has a middle score of 56.2, Big Pine / Tovowahamatü is 54.7, and Lone Pine is 53.9.

Independence is 52.0 and Tecopa is 53.6, while Darwin is lower at 44.8.

So, community-level risk in Inyo County sits in a fairly tight band for most places, with Darwin as the clearest lower outlier in this set.

Bishop town · 3,879 people
56.2 High
Big Pine / Tovowahamatü village · 1,875 people
54.7 High
Lone Pine village · 2,035 people
53.9 High
Tecopa village · 120 people
53.6 High
Independence village · 669 people
52 High
Darwin village · 43 people
44.8 Moderate

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 & fuels

Terrain, vegetation and fuels

Terrain-related risk ranges from 5.0 in unincorporated Inyo County to 65.0 near Tecopa, with a middle value of 65.0.

Vegetation and fuels are high in many scored places: the middle value is 79.5, and the top value is 80.0 near Tecopa. The lowest listed point is 20.0 in Bishop.

65 median terrain score (max 65 near Tecopa)
79.5 median vegetation & fuels score (max 80 near Tecopa)
Fire weather

Fire weather across Inyo County

Fire weather was measured across the county, with scores from 56.1 near Bishop to 68.3 near Tecopa. The middle value is 60.5.

That spread shows elevated fire-weather exposure in many scored locations, with the higher end concentrated near Tecopa.

56.1 lowest fire-weather score — near Bishop
68.3 highest fire-weather score — near Tecopa
What drives it

Which part of the risk moves, and which doesn't

Risk is not uniform from one community to another. Bishop’s middle score is 56.2, while Darwin’s is 44.8.

Big Pine / Tovowahamatü is 54.7 and Lone Pine is 53.9, with Independence at 52.0.

At the county scale, the highest scored point is near Big Pine / Tovowahamatü at 75.6, while the lowest is in unincorporated Inyo County at 36.1.

Each bar is what one part of the score covers across Inyo 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.

Terrain
5–65 highest near Tecopa
Vegetation & fuels
20–80 highest near Tecopa
Hazard zone
10–90 highest near Darwin
Fire history
5–95 highest near Independence
Fire weather
56.1–68.3 highest near Tecopa
Overall score
36.1–75.6 highest near Big Pine / Tovowahamatü

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.

Show every number behind these bars
Layer Min Median Max Lowest place Highest place Points
Terrain 5 65 65 unincorporated Inyo County near Tecopa 156
Vegetation & fuels 20 79.5 80 Bishop near Tecopa 156
Hazard zone 10 16.2 90 unincorporated Inyo County Darwin 156
Fire history 5 5 95 unincorporated Inyo County near Independence 156
Fire weather 56.1 60.5 68.3 near Bishop near Tecopa 156
Composite 36.1 49.2 75.6 unincorporated Inyo County near Big Pine / Tovowahamatü 156

Independently of Satelife's layers, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities grid puts the county's mean annual burn probability at 0.09% (90th percentile cell: 0.23%), with a mean conditional flame length of 4.18 ft. 93% of the 20,232 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 138 of the 156 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas, and most of this county is state or federal land. At 64 of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead; at the remaining 74 the hazard weight is renormalised away rather than scored as low.

156 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 a property

What a county range means for one address

In the hazard-zone measure, scores run from 10.0 in unincorporated Inyo County to 90.0 in Darwin, with a middle value of 16.2.

Past-fire exposure is very uneven: the fire-history score reaches 95.0 near Independence, while the middle value is 5.0. That means prior burn patterns contribute very differently from place to place.

FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Inyo County’s wildfire risk as Relatively Low and expected annual wildfire loss as Relatively Low. In that same index, social vulnerability is rated Very High.

A separate USFS communities product estimates mean annual burn probability at 0.09%, with a 90th-percentile cell at 0.23%. It also reports that 92.8% of the county can burn; this is modeled burn probability, not a fire-weather rating.

Across 156 sampled points in Inyo County, the score runs from 36.1 to 75.6 — two neighbouring parcels can sit in different tiers. A county number is the middle of that spread; it says nothing about which end yours is at.

Find out where your Inyo 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

Coverage

ZIP codes we cover in Inyo County

Every one of the 20 ZIP areas that touch Inyo 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.

Grouped from 10 of 20 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.

Where to go next

Inyo County wildfire risk in context

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Inyo County wildfire risk

How much of Inyo County has burned since 1984?

2.7% of the county has burned since 1984, totaling 175,987 acres.

What are the key fires to know here?

The largest listed fire is Oak (2007) at 27,063 acres. The most recent large fire is Rock (2026) at 11,737 acres.

Does most of the county score High wildfire risk?

Most scored points are in the Moderate tier (88 points), followed by High (67 points). Only 1 point is Very High, and none are Low.

Are USFS burn-probability values the same thing as fire weather?

No. The USFS values here are modeled burn probability (0.09% mean annual, 0.23% at the 90th-percentile cell), while fire weather is a separate score layer.

What does FEMA say about county-wide wildfire risk?

FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Inyo County’s wildfire risk as Relatively Low, and its expected annual wildfire loss as Relatively Low.

This page is generated from a Inyo County data pack assembled on 2026-08-19 (pack v1.0). Scores are sampled across the county, not measured at any individual address, and are informational decision support — not a substitute for official evacuation orders, a fire-agency hazard determination, or an insurer's underwriting judgement. Data versions: fema_nri 1.20.0 (Dec 2025) · landfire per adapter · nifc_history All Years View · wfigs current · wrc v2.0 (2024) · zcta Census 2020.

What does your parcel look like, layer by layer?

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.

Start with your address →