Cairo, IL
Cairo, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Cairo lands at the 24th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 1,505 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Cairo at the 25th national percentile — 1 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Cairo's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 50% of Cairo's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 2.3% Direct and 47.7% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Cairo against the rest of the country
Within Illinois, Cairo ranks higher (70th percentile) than it does nationally (24th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Cairo ranks 23,879 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 9,149 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 440 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Cairo and the insurance market
Cairo's moderate wildfire rating (24th 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.
Hardening a home in Cairo
Even with 50% of Cairo outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Cairo's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Cairo's 23,879-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Cairo's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.