Lakewood Shores, IL
How exposed is Lakewood Shores to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, Lakewood Shores lands at the 33rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 465 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Lakewood Shores at the 34th percentile, close to its 33rd-percentile risk score.
Where Lakewood Shores's buildings actually sit
Most of Lakewood Shores's buildings (69.5%) 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.
How Lakewood Shores compares
Lakewood Shores's 85th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 33rd 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, Lakewood Shores ranks 20,981 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 17,974 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 222 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
At the 33rd national percentile, Lakewood Shores rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Lakewood Shores's 69.5% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Lakewood Shores's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 465 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Lakewood Shores. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lakewood Shores's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.