Lemont, IL
Lemont wildfire risk explained
Out of every US place USFS scores, Lemont lands at the 44th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — modestly above the national average for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 7,081 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Lemont at the 45th 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 Lemont's buildings (91.6% of 7,081) 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 7,081 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Lemont compares
Lemont's 96th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 44th 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, Lemont ranks 17,770 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,421 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 66 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Lemont and the insurance market
Lemont's elevated wildfire rating (44th 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 91.6% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Lemont gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Lemont's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Lemont's 17,770-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Lemont's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.