Bishop Hill, IL
Bishop Hill wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Bishop Hill at the 5th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 138 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Bishop Hill at the 5th percentile, close to its 5th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Bishop Hill's buildings (70.3% of 138) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
Bishop Hill against the rest of the country
Compare Bishop Hill's two percentiles: 26th within Illinois, only 5th nationally — a gap of 21 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bishop Hill ranks 30,089 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,359 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,069 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Bishop Hill
At the 5th national percentile, Bishop Hill rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Bishop Hill's 70.3% 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 Bishop Hill's figures come from
Bishop Hill's 5th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Bishop Hill's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.