Muddy, IL
How exposed is Muddy to wildfire?
USFS scores Muddy at the 19th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 70 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Muddy at the 20th national percentile — 1 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
Of Muddy's 70 counted buildings, 62.9% carry Direct exposure and only 37.1% carry Minimal — a lopsided split that puts defensible-space clearing ahead of vents or roofing as the intervention worth doing first.
Where Muddy ranks
Muddy's 60th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 19th 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, Muddy ranks 25,488 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 30,272 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 578 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
Muddy's low wildfire rating (19th 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
Muddy's 62.9% Direct-exposure share means lot clearing around the structure typically outweighs any single material upgrade here. The home-hardening guide ranks the options for a place shaped like this.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 70 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Muddy. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Muddy, see the exposure-zones guide.