Germantown Hills, IL
How exposed is Germantown Hills to wildfire?
USFS scores Germantown Hills at the 22nd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 1,287 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Germantown Hills at the 22nd percentile, close to its 22nd-percentile risk score.
Germantown Hills's building exposure, zone by zone
85.6% of Germantown Hills's 1,287 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 14.4% Direct and 0.1% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Where Germantown Hills ranks
Compare Germantown Hills's two percentiles: 65th within Illinois, only 22nd nationally — a gap of 44 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Germantown Hills ranks 24,635 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,144 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 499 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Germantown Hills and the insurance market
At the 22nd national percentile, Germantown Hills rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Germantown Hills's 85.6% 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 Germantown Hills's figures come from
Germantown Hills's 22nd-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 Germantown Hills's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.