Chicago Heights, IL
Chicago Heights, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Chicago Heights at the 46th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (modestly above the national average for wildfire risk), a figure built from 12,214 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 Chicago Heights at the 49th percentile, close to its 46th-percentile risk score.
Where Chicago Heights's buildings actually sit
98.9% of Chicago Heights's 12,214 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 1.1% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 12,214 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Chicago Heights against the rest of the country
Compare Chicago Heights's two percentiles: 97th within Illinois, only 46th nationally — a gap of 51 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Chicago Heights ranks 16,949 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,269 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 44 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Chicago Heights
At the 46th national percentile, Chicago Heights rates elevated for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Chicago Heights's 98.9% 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 Chicago Heights's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 12,214 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Chicago Heights. The exposure-zones guide covers what Chicago Heights's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.