Buncombe, IL
How exposed is Buncombe to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Buncombe lands at the 47th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 170 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Buncombe at the 50th percentile, close to its 47th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
170 buildings are counted in Buncombe, and 55.3% of them sit in USFS's Direct exposure zone — flame contact, not just ember cast, is the live possibility for most of them, against 0% rated Minimal.
How Buncombe compares
Buncombe's 97th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 47th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Buncombe ranks 16,757 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,015 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 40 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Buncombe's elevated rating (47th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Buncombe
With 55.3% of Buncombe in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Buncombe's 16,757-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Buncombe, see the exposure-zones guide.