Elmhurst, IL
Elmhurst wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Elmhurst at the 16th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 19,802 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Elmhurst at the 20th national percentile — 4 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Elmhurst's buildings actually sit
Only 1.1% of Elmhurst's 19,802 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 98.9% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 19,802 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Elmhurst against the rest of the country
Elmhurst's 55th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 16th 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, Elmhurst ranks 26,499 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 716 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 660 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
Elmhurst's low rating (16th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Elmhurst'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 Elmhurst's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 19,802 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Elmhurst. The exposure-zones guide covers what Elmhurst's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.