Garden Prairie, IL
How exposed is Garden Prairie to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Garden Prairie at the 14th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 265 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Garden Prairie's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 13th percentile nationally.
Where Garden Prairie's buildings actually sit
78.5% of Garden Prairie's 265 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 21.5% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Garden Prairie against the rest of the country
Garden Prairie's 52nd-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 14th 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, Garden Prairie ranks 26,971 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,661 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 694 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Garden Prairie
Garden Prairie's low rating (14th 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
Garden Prairie's 78.5% 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 Garden Prairie's figures come from
Garden Prairie's 14th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Garden Prairie's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.