Berkeley, IL
Berkeley wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Berkeley at the 11th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 2,853 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Berkeley at the 14th national percentile — 3 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Berkeley's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 99.6% of Berkeley's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 0.4% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Berkeley ranks
Compare Berkeley's two percentiles: 45th within Illinois, only 11th nationally — a gap of 34 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Berkeley ranks 28,040 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,657 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 795 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Berkeley and the insurance market
At the 11th national percentile, Berkeley rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Berkeley
Berkeley's 99.6% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Berkeley's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Berkeley's 28,040-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Berkeley's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.