{
  "title": "Wildfire Risk in Merced County, CA 2026 | Satelife",
  "description": "Wildfire risk in Merced County varies a lot by location. Across the places we scored, the overall scores run from 17.5 in Los Banos to 71.9 near Gustine, with a middle value of 29.4.",
  "image": "https://satelife.ai/images/wildfire-risk/merced-county/generated/merced-county-locator.webp",
  "canonical": "https://satelife.ai/wildfire-risk/california/merced-county/",
  "content": "[Home](/)›[Wildfire Risk](/wildfire-risk/)›[California](/wildfire-risk/california/)›Merced County\n\nMerced County, California\n\n# Wildfire risk in Merced County: _where it is highest_, and why\n\nWildfire risk in Merced County varies a lot by location. Across the places we scored, the overall scores run from 17.5 in Los Banos to 71.9 near Gustine, with a middle value of 29.4.\n\n[Score my Merced County address →](#score-my-address) [How risky is this county? ↓](#risk-at-a-glance)\n\nBefore 20002000s2010s2020sCommunity\n\nMerced 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 Merced County scores _Moderate_ or worse\n\nWe scored 163 points across Merced County on the same 0–100 scale a Satelife address report uses, and they do not land in one place. 20% of them come out High, while 36% are Low. Which end your own parcel sits at is not something a county map can tell you.\n\n20%\n\n44%\n\n36%\n\n**High** 20% · 33 of 163 points **Moderate** 44% · 72 of 163 points **Low** 36% · 58 of 163 points\n\nSafest end we measured 17.5 near Los Banos · Low\n\nMiddle of the county 29.4 Moderate — half of Merced County is above this\n\nMost exposed end we measured 71.9 near Gustine · High\n\n### And the federal models agree it is a fire county\n\nRelatively Moderate FEMA National Risk Index — wildfire risk rating · index score 92.2 / 100\n\n$1.6M / yr FEMA NRI — expected annual loss from wildfire · rated Relatively Moderate\n\n0.68% USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities — mean annual burn probability · 90th-percentile cell 1.65%\n\n3.22 ft USFS WRC — mean conditional flame length · 83% of the county carries burnable fuel\n\nFEMA NRI also rates Merced County: all-hazards risk Relatively High · social vulnerability Relatively High · community resilience Very Low · annualised wildfire frequency 0.0052.\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 Merced 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 _Merced County_\n\nMost scored locations fall in the Moderate tier. 72 points are Moderate, and none of the scored points are in the Very High tier.\n\nFEMA’s National Risk Index rates Merced County’s wildfire risk as “Relatively Moderate.” In the same FEMA index, the county’s all-hazards risk is rated “Relatively High.”\n\nFire record\n\n## Where the fires _actually were_\n\nThe largest fire listed here is the Mercy fire in 1996, at 23,526 acres. The most recent large fire is Hwy 59 N/ La Grange Rd in 2026.\n\nSince 1984, fire perimeters in the county add up to 95,243 acres, and 7.6% of the county has burned in that period. There have been 113 fire perimeters since 1984.\n\nOther named fires in this county record include Planada (2018) and Pass (2020), showing that both older and more recent incidents are part of the local fire history.\n\n113 mapped fire perimeters centred in the county since 1984\n\n95,243 acres inside those perimeters since 1984\n\n7.6% of the county's area, as a share of 5,094.9 km²\n\nHwy 59 N/ La Grange Rd 2026 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-   **Mercy Fire**199623,526 acres\n-   **Planada Fire**20184,564 acres\n-   **Pg&E #4 Fire**19939,373 acres\n-   **Mercy Fire**19984,958 acres\n-   **Pass Fire**20202,196 acres\n-   **Old Mill Fire**19744,738 acres\n-   **Merced #7 Fire**19514,252 acres\n-   **Wright Fire**20171,730 acres\n\nPerimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · WFIGS Interagency Perimeters · largest on record: Mercy 1996. 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 larger population centers, the middle scores are fairly close: Los Banos is 25.5, Atwater is 25.4, and Merced is 22.6. That points to generally low-to-moderate differences among the county’s biggest cities and towns.\n\nSmaller communities also span a range. Hilmar is at 26.6, while Dos Palos is at 17.5, with places like Planada at 24.1 and South Dos Palos at 21.8 between those ends.\n\nHilmar village\n\n26.6 _Moderate_\n\nGustine village · 5,520 people\n\n26.1 _Moderate_\n\nLos Banos town · 35,972 people\n\n25.5 _Moderate_\n\nAtwater town · 27,152 people\n\n25.4 _Moderate_\n\nWinton village · 10,613 people\n\n25.3 _Moderate_\n\nPlanada village · 4,584 people\n\n24.1 _Low_\n\nDos Palos Y village\n\n23.2 _Low_\n\nMerced city · 83,316 people\n\n22.6 _Low_\n\nDelhi village · 10,755 people\n\n22.6 _Low_\n\nLe Grand village · 1,659 people\n\n22.6 _Low_\n\n3 more communities in Merced County\n\nLivingston town · 13,058 people\n\n22.5 _Low_\n\nSouth Dos Palos village · 1,620 people\n\n21.8 _Low_\n\nDos Palos village · 4,919 people\n\n17.5 _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 scores are generally on the lower side in much of the county, with a middle value of 20.0. But terrain reaches 65.0 near Los Banos, so slope-related exposure is higher in some locations.\n\nVegetation and fuels vary more. That score ranges from 5.0 near Los Banos up to 77.7 near South Dos Palos, with a middle value of 46.0. In practical terms, fuel patterns contribute to bigger place-to-place swings in wildfire risk than terrain alone in this county.\n\n20 median terrain score (max 65 near Los Banos)\n\n46 median vegetation & fuels score (max 77.7 near South Dos Palos)\n\nFire weather\n\n## Fire weather across _Merced County_\n\nFire weather was measured across the county, and it is fairly tight compared with some other factors. Scores run from 53.3 near Los Banos to 63.0 near Gustine, with a middle value of 54.9.\n\nA separate USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities model estimates a mean annual burn probability of 0.68%, and a 90th-percentile cell value of 1.65%. It also indicates that 83.1% of the county has some potential to burn.\n\n53.3 lowest fire-weather score — near Los Banos\n\n63 highest fire-weather score — near Gustine\n\nWhat drives it\n\n## Which part of the risk _moves_, and which doesn't\n\nRisk is not evenly spread across Merced County. The highest overall score appears near Gustine at 71.9, while the lowest is in Los Banos at 17.5.\n\nAmong named communities, Hilmar has one of the higher middle scores at 26.6, while Dos Palos is lower at 17.5. Merced sits in between at 22.6, which shows why neighborhood-level differences matter even inside one county.\n\nEach bar is what one part of the score covers across Merced 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 Los Banos\n\nVegetation & fuels\n\n5–77.7 highest near South Dos Palos\n\nHazard zone\n\n10–90 highest near Los Banos\n\nFire history\n\n5–95 highest near Gustine\n\nFire weather\n\n53.3–63 highest near Gustine\n\nOverall score\n\n17.5–71.9 highest near Gustine\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\n20\n\n65\n\nnear South Dos Palos\n\nnear Los Banos\n\n163\n\nVegetation & fuels\n\n5\n\n46\n\n77.7\n\nnear Los Banos\n\nnear South Dos Palos\n\n163\n\nHazard zone\n\n10\n\n10\n\n90\n\nnear South Dos Palos\n\nnear Los Banos\n\n163\n\nFire history\n\n5\n\n5\n\n95\n\nnear Los Banos\n\nnear Gustine\n\n163\n\nFire weather\n\n53.3\n\n54.9\n\n63\n\nnear Los Banos\n\nnear Gustine\n\n163\n\nComposite\n\n17.5\n\n29.4\n\n71.9\n\nLos Banos\n\nnear Gustine\n\n163\n\nIndependently of Satelife's layers, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities grid puts the county's mean annual burn probability at **0.68%** (90th percentile cell: **1.65%**), with a mean conditional flame length of **3.22 ft**. **83%** of the 19,479 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 **7** of the 163 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas. At **7** of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead.\n\n163 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\nHazard-zone scores are low in many scored locations, with a middle value of 10.0, but they reach 90.0 near Los Banos. So hazard-zone exposure can be very different from one part of the county to another.\n\nFire-history scores show a similar pattern: many places are at 5.0, while the high end reaches 95.0 near Gustine. For a specific home, nearby location inside the county is strongly associated with the risk picture.\n\nFEMA’s National Risk Index also rates Merced County’s expected annual loss from wildfire as “Relatively Moderate,” social vulnerability as “Relatively High,” and community resilience as “Very Low.”\n\nAcross 163 sampled points in Merced County, the score runs from 17.5 to 71.9 — 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 Merced 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 Merced County\n\nEvery one of the 32 ZIP areas that touch Merced 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**Moderate** 13 ZIPs\n\n-   [95369 Winton44](/wildfire-risk/zip/95369/)\n-   [93622 South Dos Palos41](/wildfire-risk/zip/93622/)\n-   [93635 Los Banos40](/wildfire-risk/zip/93635/)\n-   [95374 Hilmar37](/wildfire-risk/zip/95374/)\n-   [93610 Le Grand35](/wildfire-risk/zip/93610/)\n-   [95322 Gustine34](/wildfire-risk/zip/95322/)\n-   [95316 Delhi32](/wildfire-risk/zip/95316/)\n-   [95313 Hilmar31](/wildfire-risk/zip/95313/)\n-   [95348 Winton29](/wildfire-risk/zip/95348/)\n-   [95341 Merced27](/wildfire-risk/zip/95341/)\n-   [95317 Dos Palos Y26](/wildfire-risk/zip/95317/)\n-   [95340 Merced26](/wildfire-risk/zip/95340/)\n-   [95301 Atwater25](/wildfire-risk/zip/95301/)\n\n**Low** 11 ZIPs\n\n-   [95360 Gustine25](/wildfire-risk/zip/95360/)\n-   [93620 Dos Palos Y25](/wildfire-risk/zip/93620/)\n-   [95324 Hilmar23](/wildfire-risk/zip/95324/)\n-   [95333 Le Grand23](/wildfire-risk/zip/95333/)\n-   [95380 Hilmar23](/wildfire-risk/zip/95380/)\n-   [95303 Delhi23](/wildfire-risk/zip/95303/)\n-   [95315 Delhi23](/wildfire-risk/zip/95315/)\n-   [95388 Winton23](/wildfire-risk/zip/95388/)\n-   [95334 Livingston21](/wildfire-risk/zip/95334/)\n-   [93665 South Dos Palos21](/wildfire-risk/zip/93665/)\n-   [95365 Planada18](/wildfire-risk/zip/95365/)\n\n**No sampled point inside** 8 ZIPs\n\n[93653 Le Grand](/wildfire-risk/zip/93653/) · [95023](/wildfire-risk/zip/95023/) · [95075](/wildfire-risk/zip/95075/) · [95306 Le Grand](/wildfire-risk/zip/95306/) · [95312 Winton](/wildfire-risk/zip/95312/) · [95325 Planada](/wildfire-risk/zip/95325/) · [95329 Winton](/wildfire-risk/zip/95329/) · [95338 Planada](/wildfire-risk/zip/95338/)\n\nGrouped from 24 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## Merced 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 Merced County address PDF + score + mitigation plan](/#cta)\n\nFAQ\n\n## Frequently asked questions about _Merced County wildfire risk_\n\nWhat does a wildfire risk score mean here?\n\nScores run from 0 to 100, and higher scores mean higher wildfire exposure at that location.\n\nIs wildfire risk the same everywhere in Merced County?\n\nNo. The scored locations range from 17.5 to 71.9, so risk varies substantially by location.\n\nWhat is the largest fire listed for this county?\n\nThe largest listed fire is Mercy (1996), at 23,526 acres.\n\nWhat is the most recent large fire listed?\n\nThe most recent large fire is Hwy 59 N/ La Grange Rd (2026).\n\nHow does FEMA rate wildfire risk for the county overall?\n\nFEMA’s National Risk Index rates Merced County’s wildfire risk as “Relatively Moderate.”\n\nThis page is generated from a Merced 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.\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."
}