Marion, IL
Marion, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Marion lands at the 40th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a figure built from its 9,272 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Marion's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 43rd percentile nationally.
Marion's building exposure, zone by zone
Only 14.3% of Marion's 9,272 buildings carry Direct exposure and 36.1% carry Indirect; the remaining 49.6% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 9,272 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Marion against the rest of the country
Marion's 92nd-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 40th 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, Marion ranks 19,000 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,777 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 114 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
Marion's moderate wildfire rating (40th 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
Marion's 49.6% 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.
More on how this number was built
Marion's 40th-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 Marion, see the exposure-zones guide.