Gillespie, IL
How exposed is Gillespie to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Gillespie lands at the 9th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 2,153 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Gillespie at the 9th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Gillespie's building exposure, zone by zone
93.6% of Gillespie's 2,153 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 6.4% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
Where Gillespie ranks
Within Illinois, Gillespie ranks higher (40th percentile) than it does nationally (9th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Gillespie ranks 28,798 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 7,063 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 871 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Gillespie
At the 9th national percentile, Gillespie rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Hardening a home in Gillespie
Gillespie's 93.6% 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 2,153 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Gillespie. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Gillespie, see the exposure-zones guide.