Bureau Junction, IL
Bureau Junction wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Bureau Junction lands at the 34th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 237 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 Bureau Junction at the 35th percentile, close to its 34th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Indirect exposure is dominant in Bureau Junction (77.2% of 237 buildings): far enough from burnable vegetation to avoid flame contact, close enough for wind-blown embers. Only 22.8% sit in the Direct zone.
Where Bureau Junction ranks
Compare Bureau Junction's two percentiles: 85th within Illinois, only 34th nationally — a gap of 51 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Bureau Junction ranks 20,950 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,551 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 221 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
Bureau Junction's moderate wildfire rating (34th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Bureau Junction (77.2% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Bureau Junction's 20,950-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Bureau Junction, see the exposure-zones guide.