Lake Zurich, IL
Lake Zurich wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Lake Zurich lands at the 26th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 6,791 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Lake Zurich at the 28th national percentile — 2 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Lake Zurich's buildings (95.2% of 6,791) 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. At 6,791 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Lake Zurich against the rest of the country
Compare Lake Zurich's two percentiles: 72nd within Illinois, only 26th nationally — a gap of 47 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake Zurich ranks 23,439 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,546 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 402 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Lake Zurich
Lake Zurich's moderate wildfire rating (26th 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 95.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Lake Zurich 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
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 6,791 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Lake Zurich. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Lake Zurich, see the exposure-zones guide.