DeKalb, IL
How exposed is DeKalb to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts DeKalb at the 3rd national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 10,872 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, DeKalb's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 3rd percentile nationally.
DeKalb's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 2.8% of DeKalb's 10,872 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 97.2% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 10,872 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How DeKalb compares
Within Illinois, DeKalb ranks higher (20th percentile) than it does nationally (3rd) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, DeKalb ranks 30,534 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,456 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,154 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 3rd national percentile, DeKalb rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in DeKalb
DeKalb's 97.2% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 10,872 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for DeKalb. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond DeKalb, see the exposure-zones guide.