Decatur, IL
Decatur wildfire risk explained
Decatur sits at the 18th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 38,690 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Decatur's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 19th percentile nationally.
Decatur's building exposure, zone by zone
Decatur rates 83.1% Minimal exposure against just 5.9% Direct and 11% Indirect — of 38,690 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually. At 38,690 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Decatur against the rest of the country
Decatur's 57th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 18th 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, Decatur ranks 25,993 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 257 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 617 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
At the 18th national percentile, Decatur 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
Even with 83.1% of Decatur 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.
More on how this number was built
Decatur's 18th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Decatur, see the exposure-zones guide.