Jerome, IL
Jerome, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Jerome at the 5th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 1,224 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 Jerome at the 7th percentile, close to its 5th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Jerome's buildings (98.6% of 1,224) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
Jerome against the rest of the country
Jerome's 30th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 5th 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, Jerome ranks 29,874 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,502 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,020 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Jerome and the insurance market
Jerome's low wildfire rating (5th 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
With 98.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Jerome gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Jerome's 5th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Jerome, see the exposure-zones guide.