Pecatonica, IL
Pecatonica wildfire risk explained
Pecatonica sits at the 29th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 1,169 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Pecatonica at the 29th national percentile — 0 points above its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Pecatonica's building exposure, zone by zone
Pecatonica rates 84.2% Minimal exposure against just 10.8% Direct and 5.1% Indirect — of 1,169 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Where Pecatonica ranks
Compare Pecatonica's two percentiles: 78th within Illinois, only 29th nationally — a gap of 49 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pecatonica ranks 22,397 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,833 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 320 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Pecatonica and the insurance market
At the 29th national percentile, Pecatonica rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Pecatonica's 84.2% 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 Pecatonica's figures come from
Pecatonica's 29th-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 Pecatonica's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.