Merritt, IL
How exposed is Merritt to wildfire?
USFS scores Merritt at the 3rd national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 46 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Merritt at the 3rd percentile, close to its 3rd-percentile risk score.
Where Merritt's buildings actually sit
Most of Merritt's buildings (87% of 46) 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.
How Merritt compares
Merritt's 22nd-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 3rd 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, Merritt ranks 30,469 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 31,018 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,133 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Merritt
Merritt's low wildfire rating (3rd 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
Merritt's 87% 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
Merritt's 3rd-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 Merritt, see the exposure-zones guide.