Modoc County, California

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

Wildfire risk varies a lot across Modoc County. Across the places we scored, the overall score runs from 21.3 in unincorporated Modoc County to 76.7 near Alturas, with a county middle point of 62.0.

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Before 20002000s2010s2020sCommunity

Modoc 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 Modoc County scores High or worse

We scored 154 points across Modoc County on the same 0–100 scale a Satelife address report uses, and they do not land in one place. 3% of them come out Very High, while 1% are Low. Which end your own parcel sits at is not something a county map can tell you.

76%

20%

Very High 3% · 4 of 154 points High 76% · 117 of 154 points Moderate 20% · 31 of 154 points Low 1% · 2 of 154 points

Safest end we measured 21.3 near unincorporated Modoc County · Low

Middle of the county 62 High — half of Modoc County is above this

Most exposed end we measured 76.7 near Alturas · Very High

And the federal models agree it is a fire county

Relatively Moderate FEMA National Risk Index — wildfire risk rating · index score 92.9 / 100

$1.8M / yr FEMA NRI — expected annual loss from wildfire · rated Relatively Moderate

0.61% USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities — mean annual burn probability · 90th-percentile cell 1.18%

4.54 ft USFS WRC — mean conditional flame length · 95% of the county carries burnable fuel

FEMA NRI also rates Modoc County: all-hazards risk Very Low · social vulnerability Relatively High · community resilience Relatively Low · annualised wildfire frequency 0.0053.

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 Modoc 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 Modoc County

Most scored locations fall in the High tier. The count is 117 High, compared with 31 Moderate and 4 Very High.

For county-wide context, FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Modoc County’s wildfire risk as Relatively Moderate, and its expected annual wildfire loss as Relatively Moderate.

Fire record

Where the fires actually were

Fire has been a recurring part of Modoc County’s landscape. Since 1984, recorded fire perimeters in and around the county total 387,821 acres across 332 perimeters, and 14.5% of the county has burned since 1984.

The largest fire named for this county set is Steele (2017), at 45,704 acres.

The most recent large fire is Mammoth (2025).

Other major fires tied to this county record include Barry Point (2012) at 92,958 acres and Caldwell (2020), which is partly in the county, at 80,852 acres.

Barry Point Fire (2012) in Modoc County, California - A dozer operator constructs a fire break on the California side of the Barry Point Fire. Hand and engine crews conduct mop-up oper — **Barry Point Fire, 2012** — Modoc County. Photo: Bureau of Land Management · Public domain

Stone Fire (2018) in Modoc County, California - Photo by Andrew Mueller, BLM. — **Stone Fire, 2018** — Modoc County. Photo: blmcalifornia · Public domain

332 mapped fire perimeters centred in the county since 1984

387,821 acres inside those perimeters since 1984

14.5% of the county's area, as a share of 10,820.1 km²

Mammoth 2025 most recent large fire on record

Named fires on record

Barry Point Fire201292,958 acres
Steele Fire201745,704 acres
Caldwell Fire202080,852 acres in totalcrossed into the county
Stone Fire201839,584 acres
Scarface Fire197778,191 acres
Cove Fire201730,891 acres
Pine Fire199930,578 acres
Tucker Fire201914,259 acres

Perimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · WFIGS Interagency Perimeters · largest on record: Steele 2017. Perimeters are simplified for display; acreage is the figure the source records.

Communities

Where in the county you are matters most

Among named communities, Alturas has the highest overall wildfire-risk middle score at 60.2, followed by Cedarville at 58.8 and Adin at 55.8.

Canby’s middle score is 54.2, below the county middle point of 62.0, which shows why county-wide averages can miss local differences.

For broader community context, FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Modoc County’s social vulnerability as Relatively High and community resilience as Relatively Low.

Alturas town · 2,919 people

60.2 High

Cedarville village · 514 people

58.8 High

Adin village · 205 people

55.8 High

Canby village

54.2 High

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 Modoc County, ranging from 55.0 near Adin to 65.0 in unincorporated Modoc County.

Vegetation and fuels show a much wider spread. Scores run from 5.0 near Alturas to 80.0 near Adin, with a middle value of 74.0.

In practical terms, that means differences in vegetation and fuels are a bigger contributor to place-to-place risk differences here than terrain alone.

65 median terrain score (max 65 near unincorporated Modoc County)

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

Fire weather

Fire weather across Modoc County

Fire-weather scores are consistently elevated across the places we scored, but they do still vary. They range from 54.5 near Cedarville to 63.6 near Adin, with a middle value of 63.0.

A separate U.S. Forest Service wildfire model shows a mean annual burn probability of 0.61% and a 90th-percentile cell value of 1.18%. It also indicates that 95% of the county is in burnable area.

54.5 lowest fire-weather score — near Cedarville

63.6 highest fire-weather score — near Adin

What drives it

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

Risk is not uniform from one part of the county to another. The highest overall score, 76.7, is near Alturas, while the lowest, 21.3, is in unincorporated Modoc County.

Past fire exposure also swings widely by location: the fire-history score goes from 5.0 in unincorporated Modoc County to 95.0 near Alturas.

Even nearby areas can differ sharply in mapped hazard intensity. Around Adin, the hazard-zone score reaches 90.0 near town, while a scored point at Adin is 10.0.

Each bar is what one part of the score covers across Modoc 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 unincorporated Modoc County

Vegetation & fuels

5–80 highest near Adin

Hazard zone

10–90 highest near Adin

Fire history

5–95 highest near Alturas

Fire weather

54.5–63.6 highest near Adin

Overall score

21.3–76.7 highest near Alturas

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	65	65	near Adin	unincorporated Modoc County	154
Vegetation & fuels	5	74	80	near Alturas	near Adin	154
Hazard zone	10	69.5	90	Adin	near Adin	154
Fire history	5	40	95	unincorporated Modoc County	near Alturas	154
Fire weather	54.5	63	63.6	near Cedarville	near Adin	154
Composite	21.3	62	76.7	unincorporated Modoc County	near Alturas	154

Independently 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: 1.18%), with a mean conditional flame length of 4.54 ft. 95% of the 39,634 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 154 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas, and most of this county is state or federal land. At 91 of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead; at the remaining 1 the hazard weight is renormalised away rather than scored as low.

154 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

For property-level discussions, the county pattern is mostly High tier, but not exclusively so. The scored-point counts are 117 High, 31 Moderate, and 4 Very High.

Individual sites can sit far apart on risk even within the same county market: the county-wide scored range runs from 21.3 to 76.7.

At the county level, another indicator to keep in mind is modeled fire behavior potential: mean conditional flame length is 4.54 feet, and 95% of the county is in area that can burn.

Across 154 sampled points in Modoc County, the score runs from 21.3 to 76.7 — 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 Modoc 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 Modoc County

Every one of the 19 ZIP areas that touch Modoc 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 12 ZIPs

Moderate 1 ZIP

96115 Cedarville45

No sampled point inside 6 ZIPs

89412 · 96009 Adin · 96119 Adin · 97623 · 97630 · 97632

Grouped from 13 of 19 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

Modoc 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 Modoc County address PDF + score + mitigation plan

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Modoc County wildfire risk

Is wildfire risk the same everywhere in Modoc County?

No. Across the places we scored, overall risk runs from 21.3 in unincorporated Modoc County to 76.7 near Alturas.

What are the key fire-history facts for the county?

Recorded perimeters since 1984 total 387,821 acres, and 14.5% of Modoc County has burned since 1984.

What are the most important named fires to know here?

The largest fire in this county set is Steele (2017) at 45,704 acres. The most recent large fire is Mammoth (2025).

How does FEMA rate Modoc County for wildfire?

FEMA’s National Risk Index rates the county’s wildfire risk as Relatively Moderate and its expected annual wildfire loss as Relatively Moderate.

Are fire-weather conditions measured for this county?

Yes. Fire-weather scores were measured across the county’s scored locations, ranging from 54.5 near Cedarville to 63.6 near Adin.