Forest City, IL
How exposed is Forest City to wildfire?
Forest City's 197 buildings earn a 19th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Forest City at the 19th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Where Forest City's buildings actually sit
USFS puts 80.7% of Forest City's 197 buildings in the Indirect exposure zone, versus 19.3% Direct and 0% Minimal — a place where the fire doesn't need to reach the structure directly for embers to.
Where Forest City ranks
Forest City's 60th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 19th 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, Forest City ranks 25,456 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 24,954 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 575 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Forest City
At the 19th national percentile, Forest City 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
Forest City's 80.7% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Forest City's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Forest City's 25,456-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Forest City's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.