Herscher, IL
Herscher wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Herscher at the 1st national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 803 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Herscher at the 1st percentile, close to its 1st-percentile risk score.
Where Herscher's buildings actually sit
Only 1.3% of Herscher's 803 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 98.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Herscher ranks
There's little gap between Herscher's 1st national percentile and its 9th percentile inside Illinois, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Herscher ranks 31,194 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 13,604 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,308 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Herscher
At the 1st national percentile, Herscher rates low 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
Even with 98.8% of Herscher outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 803 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Herscher. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Herscher, see the exposure-zones guide.