Marengo, IL
How exposed is Marengo to wildfire?
Marengo's 3,130 buildings earn a 18th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Marengo's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 17th percentile nationally.
Where Marengo's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 58.9% of Marengo's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 8.3% Direct and 32.8% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Where Marengo ranks
Compare Marengo's two percentiles: 57th within Illinois, only 18th nationally — a gap of 40 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Marengo ranks 25,994 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,252 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 618 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
Marengo's low wildfire rating (18th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Marengo's 58.9% Minimal-exposure share means structure-level hardening matters less here than it would elsewhere — still worth the low-cost basics, per the home-hardening guide.
Where Marengo's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Marengo's 25,994-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Marengo's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.