Lassen County, California

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

Wildfire risk in Lassen County is generally elevated, with a countywide middle score of 63.5 across the places we scored. The lowest scored location is 33.1 in Bieber, while the highest is 81.1 near Standish, so conditions vary a lot by location.

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Lassen 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 Lassen County scores High or worse

We scored 160 points across Lassen County on the same 0–100 scale a Satelife address report uses, and they do not land in one place. 8% of them come out Very High, while 14% are Moderate. Which end your own parcel sits at is not something a county map can tell you.

79%

14%

Very High 8% · 12 of 160 points High 79% · 126 of 160 points Moderate 14% · 22 of 160 points

Safest end we measured 33.1 near Bieber · Moderate

Middle of the county 63.5 High — half of Lassen County is above this

Most exposed end we measured 81.1 near Standish · Very High

And the federal models agree it is a fire county

Relatively Moderate FEMA National Risk Index — wildfire risk rating · index score 97.5 / 100

$7.3M / yr FEMA NRI — expected annual loss from wildfire · rated Relatively Moderate

1.07% USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities — mean annual burn probability · 90th-percentile cell 1.94%

5.58 ft USFS WRC — mean conditional flame length · 97% of the county carries burnable fuel

FEMA NRI also rates Lassen County: all-hazards risk Relatively Low · social vulnerability Relatively High · community resilience Relatively Moderate · annualised wildfire frequency 0.0112.

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 Lassen 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 Lassen County

Most scored locations fall in the High tier: 126 points are High. Another 22 are Moderate, and 12 are Very High, with none in Low.

Since 1984, 884,742 acres have burned in the county, which is 29.5% of county area. That burn history is a major part of how risk is distributed today.

Fire record

Where the fires actually were

The largest fire listed for this county is Rush (2012) at 315,512 acres. The most recent large fire is Biscar (2026) at 69,352 acres.

Several very large fires also affected land partly in Lassen County, including Dixie (2021) at 963,309 acres and Sugar (2021) at 105,076 acres.

The record also includes many other incidents over time, with 328 fire perimeters mapped since 1984. That history helps explain why some nearby areas score very differently from one another.

Rush Fire (2012) in Lassen County, California - Rush Fire , Lassen County, California — **Rush Fire, 2012** — Lassen County. Photo: Bureau of Land Management · CC BY 2.0

Dixie Fire (2021) in Lassen County, California - Smoke of the Dixie Fire in California on August 4, 2021. Picture taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station. — **Dixie Fire, 2021** — Lassen County. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory · Public domain

328 mapped fire perimeters centred in the county since 1984

884,742 acres inside those perimeters since 1984

29.5% of the county's area, as a share of 12,154.4 km²

Biscar 2026 most recent large fire on record

Named fires on record

Rush Fire2012315,512 acres
Dixie Fire2021963,309 acres in totalcrossed into the county
W-5 Cold Springs Fire202084,817 acres
Biscar Fire202669,352 acres
Sugar Fire2021105,076 acres in totalcrossed into the county
Bald Fire201439,752 acres
Sheep Fire202029,568 acres
Bug Fire202693,733 acres in totalcrossed into the county

Perimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · WFIGS Interagency Perimeters · largest on record: Rush 2012. Perimeters are simplified for display; acreage is the figure the source records.

Communities

Where in the county you are matters most

Among the listed communities, the higher overall wildfire risk scores include Doyle (72.5), Patton Village (72.1), and Johnstonville (66.1).

Susanville, the largest city listed, is 65.2, which sits in the same general range as other nearby communities like Spaulding (61.4).

Lower scores among the listed places include Standish (48.3), Bieber (52.4), and Herlong (53.6). For buyers and owners, that spread means location inside the county matters as much as county averages.

Doyle village · 536 people

72.5 High

Patton Village village · 632 people

72.1 High

Johnstonville village · 973 people

66.1 High

Susanville city · 12,816 people

65.2 High

Spaulding village · 206 people

61.4 High

Janesville village · 2,461 people

55.8 High

Westwood village · 2,150 people

53.7 High

Herlong village · 237 people

53.6 High

Bieber village

52.4 High

Standish village

48.3 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 scores are fairly tight in Lassen County, from 55.0 near Doyle to 65.0 at Doyle. That means slope-related exposure contributes, but it does not separate places as sharply as some other factors.

Vegetation and fuels vary much more: the lowest scored location is 20.0 in Susanville, while the highest is 80.0 near Doyle. The county’s middle value is 74.0, so fuels are an important contributor in many locations.

Taken together, terrain is relatively steady while fuels change more from place to place. That pattern is associated with why nearby communities can land in different risk tiers.

55 median terrain score (max 65 near Doyle)

74 median vegetation & fuels score (max 80 near Doyle)

Fire weather

Fire weather across Lassen County

Fire weather was measured across the county, and the scores run from 54.8 near Westwood to 64.4 near Standish, with a middle value of 62.5. That is a narrower spread than several other wildfire risk factors.

Separate from fire weather, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities model reports a mean annual burn probability of 1.07% for the county, with a 90th-percentile cell at 1.94%. It also indicates that 97% of the county is in places that can burn.

54.8 lowest fire-weather score — near Westwood

64.4 highest fire-weather score — near Standish

What drives it

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

Risk is not uniform inside Lassen County. The highest scored location is 81.1 near Standish, but the lowest is 33.1 in Bieber.

Among named communities, Doyle (72.5) and Patton Village (72.1) are on the higher end, while Bieber (52.4) is lower.

Even in the Susanville area, scores are mixed: Johnstonville is 66.1 and Susanville is 65.2, while Janesville is 55.8.

Each bar is what one part of the score covers across Lassen 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

55–65 highest near Doyle

Vegetation & fuels

20–80 highest near Doyle

Hazard zone

10–91.7 highest near Spaulding

Fire history

5–95 highest near Doyle

Fire weather

54.8–64.4 highest near Standish

Overall score

33.1–81.1 highest near Standish

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	55	55	65	near Doyle	Doyle	160
Vegetation & fuels	20	74	80	Susanville	near Doyle	160
Hazard zone	10	70	91.7	Herlong	near Spaulding	160
Fire history	5	40	95	Herlong	near Doyle	160
Fire weather	54.8	62.5	64.4	near Westwood	near Standish	160
Composite	33.1	63.5	81.1	Bieber	near Standish	160

Independently of Satelife's layers, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities grid puts the county's mean annual burn probability at 1.07% (90th percentile cell: 1.94%), with a mean conditional flame length of 5.58 ft. 97% of the 26,447 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 160 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas, and most of this county is state or federal land. At 92 of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead.

160 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

Two mapped factors that often matter at property scale are hazard zone and local fire history, and both vary sharply here. Hazard zone scores range from 10.0 in Herlong to 91.7 near Spaulding, with a middle value of 70.0.

Fire history also has a wide spread, from 5.0 in Herlong to 95.0 near Doyle. The county middle value is 40.0, which reflects substantial differences in past fire footprint between locations.

For countywide context, FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Lassen County’s wildfire risk as Relatively Moderate and its expected annual wildfire loss as Relatively Moderate. FEMA also rates overall all-hazards risk as Relatively Low for the county.

Across 160 sampled points in Lassen County, the score runs from 33.1 to 81.1 — 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 Lassen 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 Lassen County

Every one of the 25 ZIP areas that touch Lassen 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.

High 14 ZIPs

Moderate 1 ZIP

96128 Standish44

No sampled point inside 10 ZIPs

89412 · 89508 Doyle · 89510 Doyle · 95947 Westwood · 96020 Westwood · 96028 Bieber · 96068 Bieber · 96110 · 96116 · 96121 Patton Village

Grouped from 15 of 25 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

Lassen County wildfire risk in context

California wildfire risk The statewide picture and every county page we publish Wildfire risk by state Every state and county we cover How Satelife calculates wildfire risk Data sources, layers, score composition, honest limits Create a wildfire evacuation plan Zones, egress routes, refuge areas Run a report for a Lassen County address PDF + score + mitigation plan

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Lassen County wildfire risk

Has a large share of Lassen County burned before?

Yes. Since 1984, 884,742 acres have burned, equal to 29.5% of the county.

What tier is most common in Lassen County?

High is the most common tier among the places we scored, with 126 locations in High. There are also 22 Moderate and 12 Very High locations, and none in Low.

What is the most recent large fire named for this county?

Biscar (2026) is the most recent large fire, at 69,352 acres. The largest listed fire is Rush (2012) at 315,512 acres.

Is fire weather the same thing as burn probability?

No. Fire weather scores describe weather-related wildfire exposure, while burn probability here comes from the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities model. In this county, that model reports 1.07% mean annual burn probability and 1.94% at the 90th-percentile cell.