Wildfire risk in San Benito County spans a wide range, but it leans high overall. Across the places we scored, the county median is 62.3, with lower scores around Hollister (24.1 at the low end) and higher scores in unincorporated San Benito County (80.8 at the high end).
We scored 152 points across San Benito County on the same 0–100 scale a Satelife address report uses, and they do not land in one place. 9% 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.
FEMA NRI also rates San Benito County: all-hazards risk Relatively Moderate · social vulnerability Very Low · community resilience Relatively Moderate · annualised wildfire frequency 0.0085.
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.
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Most scored locations fall in the High tier: 114 points are High, compared with 23 Moderate, 14 Very High, and 1 Low. That pattern means many parts of the county sit in elevated wildfire risk, even though risk is not the same everywhere.
FEMA’s National Risk Index rates San Benito County’s wildfire risk as Relatively Moderate, and its wildfire expected annual loss rating is also Relatively Moderate. FEMA also rates the county’s social vulnerability as Very Low.
Since 1984, 75 fire perimeters are mapped in San Benito County, and 36,289 acres have burned. That equals 4.1% of the county.
The largest fire named in the county fire stats is Rock Springs VMP (2019), at 4,410 acres. The most recent large fire is Coyote (2020).
The historical list also includes very large fires connected to this area, including Ciervo (1979) at 62,902 acres, which was partly in the county, and Mack (1950) at 35,380 acres.
Fire perimeters coloured by decade. Select a perimeter for its name, year and size.
Perimeter sources: NIFC Interagency Fire Perimeter History · largest on record: Rock Springs VMP 2019. Perimeters are simplified for display; acreage is the figure the source records.
Among the communities listed here, Hollister has a median wildfire risk score of 48.9, while San Juan Bautista is 51.0. Both are below the countywide median score of 62.3.
That does not mean nearby unincorporated areas are similar. The highest county scores are in unincorporated San Benito County, so community-level numbers and outlying-area numbers can differ substantially.
For population context, Hollister is the largest community listed, and San Juan Bautista is much smaller. In practice, buyers and agents often see risk shift as they move from town parcels into surrounding rural land.
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 contributes strongly to wildfire risk in San Benito County. The terrain score reaches 65.0 in unincorporated San Benito County, while Hollister is at 20.0.
Vegetation and fuels are also elevated in many places we scored. The vegetation-and-fuels score peaks at 80.0 in unincorporated San Benito County and is 20.0 in Hollister.
Taken together, steeper or harder-to-defend ground and heavier burnable cover are associated with higher wildfire risk in the county’s unincorporated areas.
Fire weather was measured across the county, and the spread is fairly tight: 51.5 in San Juan Bautista up to 56.9 in unincorporated San Benito County, with a county median of 54.8.
Because that weather range is narrower than some other factors, place-to-place differences in overall wildfire risk are associated more with terrain, fuels, and local fire history patterns than with big weather swings alone.
Separately from fire weather, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities model reports a mean annual burn probability of 1.95% and a 90th-percentile cell value of 3.95%. It also indicates 99.3% of the county can burn.
Risk changes a lot by location inside the county. The lowest scored point is in Hollister at 24.1, while the highest is in unincorporated San Benito County at 80.8.
San Juan Bautista sits near the middle of that spread in this scoring, and unincorporated areas contain the upper end of county risk more often. For buyers and owners, that means two properties in the same county can face very different wildfire risk levels.
By tier counts, High is the most common countywide category, not Moderate or Low. Very High is present too, but in fewer scored locations than High.
Each bar is what one part of the score covers across San Benito 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.
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.
| Layer | Min | Median | Max | Lowest place | Highest place | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terrain | 20 | 65 | 65 | Hollister | unincorporated San Benito County | 152 |
| Vegetation & fuels | 20 | 71.8 | 80 | Hollister | unincorporated San Benito County | 152 |
| Hazard zone | 10 | 70.8 | 95.8 | San Juan Bautista | unincorporated San Benito County | 152 |
| Fire history | 5 | 20 | 95 | unincorporated San Benito County | near Hollister | 152 |
| Fire weather | 51.5 | 54.8 | 56.9 | San Juan Bautista | unincorporated San Benito County | 152 |
| Composite | 24.1 | 62.3 | 80.8 | Hollister | unincorporated San Benito County | 152 |
Independently of Satelife's layers, the USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities grid puts the county's mean annual burn probability at 1.95% (90th percentile cell: 3.95%), with a mean conditional flame length of 6.33 ft. 99% of the 17,510 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 22 of the 152 sampled points — the zones cover Local Responsibility Areas. At 22 of them the USFS grid above supplied the hazard reading instead.
152 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.
At property scale, county-level averages are only a starting point. In this county, the full score range runs from 24.1 to 80.8, so address location matters.
Two mapped contributors that can swing a property’s profile are hazard zone and fire history. Hazard zone reaches 95.8 in unincorporated San Benito County, while fire history reaches 95.0 near Hollister.
If you are comparing listings, use the exact property location to see how local terrain, fuels, weather, hazard zone, and fire history combine at that spot, rather than assuming the same risk across the county.
Find out where your San Benito 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
Every one of the 17 ZIP areas that touch San Benito 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 6 ZIPs
Moderate 1 ZIP
No sampled point inside 10 ZIPs
93622 · 93635 · 93907 San Juan Bautista · 93908 San Juan Bautista · 93925 Hollister · 93926 Hollister · 93954 · 93960 · 95020 San Juan Bautista · 95076 San Juan Bautista
Grouped from 7 of 17 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.
No. Scores in the county run from 24.1 in Hollister to 80.8 in unincorporated San Benito County, so risk varies a lot by location.
Since 1984, 36,289 acres have burned across 75 mapped perimeters, which is 4.1% of the county. The largest fire named in the county fire stats is Rock Springs VMP (2019), and the most recent large fire is Coyote (2020).
FEMA’s National Risk Index rates San Benito County’s wildfire risk as Relatively Moderate, and its wildfire expected annual loss rating is also Relatively Moderate.
Yes. Hollister (48.9) and San Juan Bautista (51.0) are below the county median of 62.3, while the highest scores are found in unincorporated San Benito County.
Yes. The USFS Wildfire Risk to Communities model lists a mean annual burn probability of 1.95% and a 90th-percentile cell value of 3.95%.
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.
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