Wildfire risk in Plumas County: where it is highest, and why
Wildfire risk in Plumas County is generally elevated in the places we scored. Overall scores range from 34.5 in Peninsula Village to 82.0 near Greenville, with a county median of 68.7.
Plumas 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 Plumas County scores High or worse
We scored 158 points across Plumas County on the same 0–100 scale a Satelife address report uses, and they do not land in one place. 24% of them come out Very High, while 6% are Moderate. Which end your own parcel sits at is not something a county map can tell you.
24%
70%
Very High24% · 38 of 158 pointsHigh70% · 111 of 158 pointsModerate6% · 9 of 158 points
Safest end we measured34.5near Peninsula Village · Moderate
Middle of the county68.7High — half of Plumas County is above this
Most exposed end we measured82near Greenville · Very High
And the federal models agree it is a fire county
Relatively HighFEMA National Risk Index — wildfire risk rating · index score 98.6 / 100
$13.2M / yrFEMA NRI — expected annual loss from wildfire · rated Relatively High
1.19%USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities — mean annual burn probability · 90th-percentile cell 2.54%
7.13 ftUSFS WRC — mean conditional flame length · 98% of the county carries burnable fuel
FEMA NRI also rates Plumas County: all-hazards risk Relatively Moderate · social vulnerability Very High · community resilience Relatively High · 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 Plumas 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 Plumas County
The most common rating is High: 111 scored locations fall in that tier. Another 38 locations are in Very High, which means higher exposure is common in many parts of the county.
Only 9 scored locations are Moderate, and none are Low. For buyers and owners, that pattern means it is important to look at the exact location, not just the county name.
Fire record
Where the fires actually were
Fire has touched a very large share of Plumas County. Since 1984, 1,569,648 acres have burned within county fire perimeters, and 94.4% of the county has burned at least once.
The largest fire listed is the Dixie Fire (2021), at 963,309 acres. It also destroyed 1,311 structures.
The most recent large fire is Mill (2024). Other major fires listed for this county include Sugar, Chips, Walker, Moonlight, BTU Lightning Complex, Storrie, and Bucks.
Dixie Fire, 2021 — Plumas County.
Photo: NASA Earth Observatory · Public domainSugar Fire, 2021 — Plumas County.
Photo: blmcalifornia · Public domain
166mapped fire perimeters centred in the county since 1984
1,569,648acres inside those perimeters since 1984
94.4%of the county's area, as a share of 6,729.4 km²
Mill 2024most recent large fire on record
Before 20002000s2010s2020s
Fire perimeters coloured by decade. Select a perimeter for its name, year and size.
Perimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · WFIGS Interagency Perimeters · largest on record: Dixie 2021.
Perimeters are simplified for display; acreage is the figure the source records.
Communities
Where in the county you are matters most
FEMA’s National Risk Index rates Plumas County’s wildfire risk as "Relatively High" and its expected annual wildfire loss as "Relatively High." FEMA rates the county’s all-hazards risk as "Relatively Moderate."
In the same FEMA index, social vulnerability is rated "Very High" and community resilience is rated "Relatively High." These are county-wide FEMA ratings, not neighborhood-level scores.
A separate U.S. Forest Service burn-probability model shows a mean annual burn probability of 1.19% and a 90th-percentile cell value of 2.54%. This is a modeled burn-probability view, not a fire-weather score.
That model also indicates that 97.8% of the county can burn, and it reports a mean conditional flame length of 7.13 feet.
Quincytown
77.7 Very High
East Quincyvillage
75 Very High
La Portevillage
72.5 High
Greenvillevillage
72.3 High
Portolatown · 2,188 people
67.3 High
Graeaglevillage
66.9 High
Peninsula Villagevillage
62.9 High
Chestertown · 2,144 people
60.5 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 this county, from 55.0 in La Porte to 65.0 near Portola, with a median of 55.0. That narrow spread means slope-related exposure changes, but not dramatically, across the places we scored.
Vegetation and fuels vary much more: from 5.0 in Peninsula Village up to 80.0 near Portola, with a median of 74.0. In this county, that wider fuels spread contributes to bigger differences in overall wildfire risk between locations.
In plain terms, two properties can have similar terrain scores but different overall wildfire risk when vegetation and fuels are very different.
55median terrain score (max 65 near Portola)
74median vegetation & fuels score (max 80 near Portola)
Fire weather
Fire weather across Plumas County
Fire weather was measured across the county, and the scores are in a relatively narrow band. They run from 54.8 near Greenville to 62.9 in La Porte, with a median of 62.1.
Because that spread is smaller than some other factors, differences in overall wildfire risk between communities are more associated with terrain, fuels, hazard-zone, and fire-history differences than with fire-weather score differences alone.
54.8lowest fire-weather score — near Greenville
62.9highest fire-weather score — near La Porte
What drives it
Which part of the risk moves, and which doesn't
Risk is not uniform from one community to another. The highest overall score in the places we scored is 82.0 near Greenville, while the lowest is 34.5 in Peninsula Village.
Among named communities, Quincy is on the higher end at 77.7, and East Quincy is also high at 75.0. Greenville is elevated as well at 72.3.
On the lower side of the county’s range, Chester is 60.5 and Peninsula Village is 62.9. Portola sits in between at 67.3, showing that nearby markets can still differ meaningfully.
Each bar is what one part of the score covers across Plumas 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
55–65highest near Portola
Vegetation & fuels
5–80highest near Portola
Hazard zone
10–93.5highest near La Porte
Fire history
5–95highest near La Porte
Fire weather
54.8–62.9highest near La Porte
Overall score
34.5–82highest near Greenville
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
La Porte
near Portola
158
Vegetation & fuels
5
74
80
Peninsula Village
near Portola
158
Hazard zone
10
81.3
93.5
near Portola
La Porte
158
Fire history
5
70
95
near Portola
La Porte
158
Fire weather
54.8
62.1
62.9
near Greenville
La Porte
158
Composite
34.5
68.7
82
Peninsula Village
near Greenville
158
Independently of Satelife's layers, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities grid puts the county's mean annual burn probability at 1.19% (90th percentile cell: 2.54%), with a mean conditional flame length of 7.13 ft. 98% of the 23,948 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 107 of the 158 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas, and most of this county is state or federal land. At 107 of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead.
158 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 parcel-level context, hazard-zone scores are high in much of Plumas County. The median is 81.3, reaching 93.5 in La Porte and dropping to 10.0 near Portola.
Fire-history scores show a similar contrast: the median is 70.0, with 95.0 in La Porte and 5.0 near Portola. Past fire footprint and recurrence patterns are an important part of why property-level risk can change quickly across short distances.
Most scored locations land in the High tier (111), and many are Very High (38). That means many property searches here start from moderate-to-higher exposure.
There are 9 Moderate locations and no Low locations in the county scoring results, so lower-exposure pockets exist but are less common.
Across 158 sampled points in Plumas County, the score runs from
34.5 to 82 — 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 Plumas 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 Plumas County
Every one of the 28 ZIP areas that touch Plumas 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.
Frequently asked questions about Plumas County wildfire risk
What does the 0–100 wildfire risk score mean?
It is a location score where higher numbers mean greater wildfire exposure. In Plumas County, the places we scored run from 34.5 to 82.0.
Which fire was the largest, and which was the most recent large fire?
The largest listed fire is Dixie (2021), at 963,309 acres, and it destroyed 1,311 structures. The most recent large fire is Mill (2024).
Is FEMA’s rating the same thing as a town score like Quincy or Chester?
No. FEMA’s National Risk Index ratings here are county-wide ratings for Plumas County, while town and nearby-location scores describe specific places inside the county.
Is burn probability the same as fire weather?
No. The U.S. Forest Service numbers shown here are modeled burn probabilities (1.19% mean annual, 2.54% for higher-end cells), while fire weather is a separate part of the county scoring.
This page is generated from a Plumas 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.
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.
