Dorchester, IL
How exposed is Dorchester to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Dorchester lands at the 5th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 152 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Dorchester at the 5th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Dorchester's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Dorchester's buildings (67.1% of 152) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
How Dorchester compares
Compare Dorchester's two percentiles: 27th within Illinois, only 5th nationally — a gap of 22 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dorchester ranks 30,060 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,795 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,064 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Dorchester and the insurance market
Dorchester's low wildfire rating (5th 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 Dorchester
With 67.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Dorchester gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Dorchester's 5th-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 Dorchester, see the exposure-zones guide.