Mount Vernon, IL
How exposed is Mount Vernon to wildfire?
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Mount Vernon at the 20th national percentile for risk to structures, close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — a score built from 7,588 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Mount Vernon's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 21st percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
80.1% of Mount Vernon's 7,588 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 14.5% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself. At 7,588 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Where Mount Vernon ranks
Within Illinois, Mount Vernon ranks higher (62nd percentile) than it does nationally (20th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Mount Vernon ranks 25,111 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,256 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 548 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon's moderate wildfire rating (20th 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.
Hardening a home in Mount Vernon
Even with 80.1% of Mount Vernon outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Mount Vernon's figures come from
Mount Vernon's 20th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Mount Vernon's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.