Penfield, IL
Penfield wildfire risk explained
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Penfield at the 10th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 173 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Penfield's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 10th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
USFS classifies 83.2% of Penfield's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 16.8% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Penfield compares
Compare Penfield's two percentiles: 44th within Illinois, only 10th nationally — a gap of 34 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Penfield ranks 28,294 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 25,889 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 814 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Penfield
Penfield's low wildfire rating (10th 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
With 83.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Penfield gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 173 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Penfield. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Penfield, see the exposure-zones guide.