{
  "title": "Wildfire Risk in Madera County, CA 2026 | Satelife",
  "description": "Wildfire risk in Madera County spans a wide range from the valley floor to the Sierra foothills. In the places we scored, the lowest overall score was 17.6 in Madera, while the highest was 80.4 near Oakhurst.",
  "image": "https://satelife.ai/images/wildfire-risk/madera-county/generated/madera-county-locator.webp",
  "canonical": "https://satelife.ai/wildfire-risk/california/madera-county/",
  "content": "[Home](/)›[Wildfire Risk](/wildfire-risk/)›[California](/wildfire-risk/california/)›Madera County\n\nMadera County, California\n\n# Wildfire risk in Madera County: _where it is highest_, and why\n\nWildfire risk in Madera County spans a wide range from the valley floor to the Sierra foothills. In the places we scored, the lowest overall score was 17.6 in Madera, while the highest was 80.4 near Oakhurst.\n\n[Score my Madera County address →](#score-my-address) [How risky is this county? ↓](#risk-at-a-glance)\n\nBefore 20002000s2010s2020sCommunity\n\nMadera County — the largest fires on record, at their perimeter centres, with the county’s main communities. Select a marker for its detail.\n\nAt a glance\n\n## Half of Madera County scores _High_ or worse\n\nWe scored 156 points across Madera County on the same 0–100 scale a Satelife address report uses, and they do not land in one place. 4% of them come out Very High, while 26% are Low. Which end your own parcel sits at is not something a county map can tell you.\n\n49%\n\n21%\n\n26%\n\n**Very High** 4% · 7 of 156 points **High** 49% · 76 of 156 points **Moderate** 21% · 33 of 156 points **Low** 26% · 40 of 156 points\n\nSafest end we measured 17.6 near Madera · Low\n\nMiddle of the county 51.1 High — half of Madera County is above this\n\nMost exposed end we measured 80.4 near Oakhurst · Very High\n\n### And the federal models agree it is a fire county\n\nRelatively High FEMA National Risk Index — wildfire risk rating · index score 99.4 / 100\n\n$23.0M / yr FEMA NRI — expected annual loss from wildfire · rated Relatively High\n\n0.61% USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities — mean annual burn probability · 90th-percentile cell 1.63%\n\n3.17 ft USFS WRC — mean conditional flame length · 89% of the county carries burnable fuel\n\nFEMA NRI also rates Madera County: all-hazards risk Relatively High · social vulnerability Relatively High · community resilience Very Low · annualised wildfire frequency 0.0069.\n\nSources: 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.\n\nWhat does your Madera County address score?\n\nA county range shows the spread. Your parcel sits somewhere inside it — the report says where, and what to do about it.\n\nFree to request · PDF report with a 0–100 score, the drivers behind it, and a mitigation plan\n\nLocal context\n\n## What the data says about _Madera County_\n\nMost scored locations fall in the High tier. There are 76 High locations, and the county also includes Moderate, Low, and 7 Very High locations.\n\nLooking back over recorded fire perimeters, 14.9% of the county has burned since 1984. FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Madera County’s wildfire risk as Relatively High.\n\nFire record\n\n## Where the fires _actually were_\n\nThe largest fire listed for the county is the Ferguson fire (2018), at 97,729 acres.\n\nThe most recent large fire is the River fire (2021), at 9,655 acres.\n\nThe Creek fire (2020) is also important here: it burned 379,802 acres and was partly in Madera County.\n\nSince 1984, the county has had 149 mapped fire perimeters, and those perimeters together cover 14.9% of the county.\n\n![Creek Fire (2020) in Madera County, California - The Creek Fire burned more than 370,000 acres in Fresno and Madera counties in California in 2020. It destroyed more than 800 stru](/images/wildfire-risk/madera-county/photos/2020-creek-fire-on-2020-09-08-1.webp)\n\n**Creek Fire, 2020** — Madera County. Photo: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) · [Public domain](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2020_Creek_Fire_on_2020-09-08_1.jpg)\n\n![Ferguson Fire (2018) in Madera County, California - A little more than a year after the residents of the mountain town of Mariposa, California were evacuated due to the encroachment ](/images/wildfire-risk/madera-county/photos/ferguson-fire-in-sierra-national-forest-california-modis-201.webp)\n\n**Ferguson Fire, 2018** — Madera County. Photo: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC · [Public domain](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferguson_Fire_in_Sierra_National_Forest,_California_\\(MODIS_2018-07-21\\).jpg)\n\n149 mapped fire perimeters centred in the county since 1984\n\n204,464 acres inside those perimeters since 1984\n\n14.9% of the county's area, as a share of 5,545 km²\n\nRiver 2021 most recent large fire on record\n\nBefore 20002000s2010s2020s \n\nFire perimeters coloured by decade. Select a perimeter for its name, year and size.\n\nNamed fires on record\n\n-   **Creek Fire**2020379,802 acres in totalcrossed into the county\n-   **Ferguson Fire**201897,729 acres\n-   **Harlow Fire**196143,331 acres\n-   **Lions Fire**201813,461 acres\n-   **French Fire**201413,832 acres\n-   **Railroad Fire**201712,371 acres\n-   **River Fire**20219,655 acres\n-   **Willow Fire**20155,701 acres\n\nPerimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · WFIGS Interagency Perimeters · largest on record: Ferguson 2018. Perimeters are simplified for display; acreage is the figure the source records.\n\nCommunities\n\n## Where in the county you are _matters most_\n\nFor buyers and owners comparing towns, the biggest contrast is between the valley communities and the foothill communities. Madera and Chowchilla are lower in wildfire risk, while Oakhurst, North Fork, Bass Lake, and Coarsegold are notably higher.\n\nThat split lines up with where steeper terrain, heavier fuels, higher hazard-zone scores, and stronger fire-history scores appear in the county.\n\nOakhurst town · 5,945 people\n\n72.8 _High_\n\nNorth Fork village\n\n67.8 _High_\n\nBass Lake village\n\n63.2 _High_\n\nCoarsegold village · 4,144 people\n\n62.9 _High_\n\nMadera city · 65,706 people\n\n24.2 _Low_\n\nChowchilla town · 18,160 people\n\n22.6 _Low_\n\nThe 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.\n\nTerrain & fuels\n\n## Terrain, vegetation and _fuels_\n\nTerrain is a major part of why risk changes across the county. Terrain scores run from 20.0 near Madera up to 65.0 near North Fork.\n\nVegetation and fuels show a similar split: 20.0 in Madera and 80.0 in North Fork. That pattern is associated with higher wildfire risk in the foothill and mountain communities.\n\nState hazard-zone scores are much higher around Oakhurst (91.9) than near Madera (10.0).\n\nPast fire footprint scores also separate these areas: near North Fork the score reaches 95.0, compared with 5.0 near Madera.\n\n40 median terrain score (max 65 near North Fork)\n\n61.7 median vegetation & fuels score (max 80 near North Fork)\n\n![LANDFIRE existing vegetation type map of Madera County, California, with the county boundary outlined](/images/wildfire-risk/madera-county/generated/madera-county-fuels.webp)\n\nLANDFIRE existing vegetation type across Madera County — the same fuel data that feeds the vegetation layer of a Satelife property report.\n\nFire weather\n\n## Fire weather across _Madera County_\n\nFire-weather scores were measured across the county, and they are tightly grouped. They range from 54.3 near Bass Lake to 56.2 near Madera, so this factor is fairly similar from place to place.\n\nA separate USFS wildfire model reports a mean annual burn probability of 0.61%, with a 90th-percentile cell value of 1.63%. It also indicates 89.1% of the county can burn.\n\n54.3 lowest fire-weather score — near Bass Lake\n\n56.2 highest fire-weather score — near Madera\n\nWhat drives it\n\n## Which part of the risk _moves_, and which doesn't\n\nRisk differs a lot by community. Madera (24.2) and Chowchilla (22.6) sit on the lower end of county scores, while Oakhurst is much higher at 72.8.\n\nOther foothill communities are also elevated: North Fork is 67.8, Coarsegold is 62.9, and Bass Lake is 63.2.\n\nAt the countywide extremes, the highest scored location is near Oakhurst at 80.4, and the lowest is in Madera at 17.6.\n\nEach bar is what one part of the score covers across Madera 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.\n\nTerrain\n\n20–65 highest near North Fork\n\nVegetation & fuels\n\n20–80 highest near North Fork\n\nHazard zone\n\n10–91.9 highest near Oakhurst\n\nFire history\n\n5–95 highest near North Fork\n\nFire weather\n\n54.3–56.2 highest near Madera\n\nOverall score\n\n17.6–80.4 highest near Oakhurst\n\nThe 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.\n\nShow every number behind these bars\n\nLayer\n\nMin\n\nMedian\n\nMax\n\nLowest place\n\nHighest place\n\nPoints\n\nTerrain\n\n20\n\n40\n\n65\n\nnear Madera\n\nnear North Fork\n\n156\n\nVegetation & fuels\n\n20\n\n61.7\n\n80\n\nMadera\n\nNorth Fork\n\n156\n\nHazard zone\n\n10\n\n47.5\n\n91.9\n\nnear Madera\n\nOakhurst\n\n156\n\nFire history\n\n5\n\n30\n\n95\n\nnear Madera\n\nnear North Fork\n\n156\n\nFire weather\n\n54.3\n\n56\n\n56.2\n\nnear Bass Lake\n\nnear Madera\n\n156\n\nComposite\n\n17.6\n\n51.1\n\n80.4\n\nMadera\n\nnear Oakhurst\n\n156\n\nIndependently of Satelife's layers, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities grid puts the county's mean annual burn probability at **0.61%** (90th percentile cell: **1.63%**), with a mean conditional flame length of **3.17 ft**. **89%** of the 14,655 grid cells inside the county carry burnable fuel at all.\n\nSource: USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities v2.0 (ImageServer, county extent).\n\nCAL FIRE has no mapped Fire Hazard Severity Zone at **57** of the 156 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas. At **55** of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead; at the remaining 2 the hazard weight is renormalised away rather than scored as low.\n\n156 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.\n\nFor a property\n\n## What a county range means for _one address_\n\nAt property scale, Madera County includes all four address-style risk tiers. The largest group of scored locations is High (76), and there are also Low (40) and Very High (7) locations, with Moderate locations in between.\n\nFor countywide context, FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Madera County as Relatively High for wildfire risk and Relatively High for expected annual loss from wildfire. FEMA also rates social vulnerability as Relatively High and community resilience as Very Low.\n\nAcross 156 sampled points in Madera County, the score runs from 17.6 to 80.4 — 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.\n\nFind out where your Madera County parcel sits\n\nSlope, the fuel touching the structure, the road out, the fire history within a mile — measured at your address, not averaged across the county.\n\nFree to request · PDF report with a 0–100 score, the drivers behind it, and a mitigation plan\n\nCoverage\n\n## ZIP codes we cover in Madera County\n\nEvery one of the 32 ZIP areas that touch Madera 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.\n\n**Very High** 1 ZIP\n\n-   [93623 Oakhurst80](/wildfire-risk/zip/93623/)\n\n**High** 9 ZIPs\n\n-   [93602 North Fork75](/wildfire-risk/zip/93602/)\n-   [93644 Bass Lake68](/wildfire-risk/zip/93644/)\n-   [93601 Oakhurst67](/wildfire-risk/zip/93601/)\n-   [93604 Bass Lake66](/wildfire-risk/zip/93604/)\n-   [93643 North Fork65](/wildfire-risk/zip/93643/)\n-   [93645 North Fork63](/wildfire-risk/zip/93645/)\n-   [93669 Bass Lake55](/wildfire-risk/zip/93669/)\n-   [93614 Coarsegold54](/wildfire-risk/zip/93614/)\n-   [93653 Coarsegold53](/wildfire-risk/zip/93653/)\n\n**Moderate** 2 ZIPs\n\n-   [93626 Coarsegold50](/wildfire-risk/zip/93626/)\n-   [93636 Madera36](/wildfire-risk/zip/93636/)\n\n**Low** 4 ZIPs\n\n-   [93638 Madera25](/wildfire-risk/zip/93638/)\n-   [93622 25](/wildfire-risk/zip/93622/)\n-   [93610 Chowchilla23](/wildfire-risk/zip/93610/)\n-   [93637 Madera23](/wildfire-risk/zip/93637/)\n\n**No sampled point inside** 16 ZIPs\n\n[93529](/wildfire-risk/zip/93529/) · [93546](/wildfire-risk/zip/93546/) · [93619 North Fork](/wildfire-risk/zip/93619/) · [93620 Chowchilla](/wildfire-risk/zip/93620/) · [93630 Madera](/wildfire-risk/zip/93630/) · [93640](/wildfire-risk/zip/93640/) · [93664 North Fork](/wildfire-risk/zip/93664/) · [93711 Madera](/wildfire-risk/zip/93711/) · [93720 Madera](/wildfire-risk/zip/93720/) · [93722 Madera](/wildfire-risk/zip/93722/) · [93723 Madera](/wildfire-risk/zip/93723/) · [93730 Madera](/wildfire-risk/zip/93730/) · [95317 Chowchilla](/wildfire-risk/zip/95317/) · [95333 Chowchilla](/wildfire-risk/zip/95333/) · [95338 Oakhurst](/wildfire-risk/zip/95338/) · [95389](/wildfire-risk/zip/95389/)\n\nGrouped from 16 of 32 ZIP areas — the rest had no sample point fall inside them. The community shown is the nearest mapped place to the ZIP's centre.\n\nZIP areas are Census 2020 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas intersecting the county boundary.\n\nWhere to go next\n\n## Madera County wildfire risk _in context_\n\n[California wildfire risk The statewide picture and every county page we publish](/wildfire-risk/california/) [Wildfire risk by state Every state and county we cover](/wildfire-risk/) [How Satelife calculates wildfire risk Data sources, layers, score composition, honest limits](/wildfire-risk/methodology/) [Create a wildfire evacuation plan Zones, egress routes, refuge areas](/wildfire-evacuation-plan/) [Run a report for a Madera County address PDF + score + mitigation plan](/#cta)\n\nFAQ\n\n## Frequently asked questions about _Madera County wildfire risk_\n\nWhat is the most recent large fire I should know about in Madera County?\n\nThe most recent large fire is the River fire (2021), which burned 9,655 acres.\n\nHow much of Madera County has burned?\n\n14.9% of the county has burned since 1984, based on mapped fire perimeters.\n\nAre wildfire risks similar across Madera County?\n\nNo. Scores are much lower in Madera and Chowchilla, and much higher in foothill communities like Oakhurst, North Fork, Bass Lake, and Coarsegold.\n\nIs fire weather the main difference between places in this county?\n\nFire-weather scores are very similar across the county (54.3 to 56.2). Bigger place-to-place differences show up in terrain, vegetation/fuels, hazard-zone scores, and fire history.\n\nHow does FEMA rate the county overall?\n\nFEMA’s National Risk Index rates Madera County as Relatively High for wildfire risk, Relatively High for wildfire expected annual loss, and Very Low for community resilience.\n\nThis page is generated from a Madera County data pack assembled on 2026-08-18 (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.\n\n## What does _your parcel_ look like, layer by layer?\n\nA 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.\n\n[Start with your address →](/#cta)\n\n[![PRR](/images/prr.png)](/ficha-de-website-voucher-satelife.pdf)\n\n© 2024–2026 Satelife, Lda. All rights reserved.\n\nSatelife reports are for informational purposes only and do not constitute insurance, financial, or legal advice."
}