Hillsdale, IL
Hillsdale wildfire risk explained
Hillsdale's 373 buildings earn a 17th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Hillsdale at the 17th percentile, close to its 17th-percentile risk score.
Where Hillsdale's buildings actually sit
Most of Hillsdale's buildings (63.5%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
Where Hillsdale ranks
Within Illinois, Hillsdale ranks higher (57th percentile) than it does nationally (17th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Hillsdale ranks 26,084 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 19,801 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 625 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Hillsdale's low wildfire rating (17th percentile) isn't the kind of score driving the carrier pullback making news in the highest-risk Western markets — but a standard homeowners quote is still worth comparing on its own terms.
What would actually reduce this score
Because 63.5% of Hillsdale's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Hillsdale's 26,084-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Hillsdale, see the exposure-zones guide.