Pontoon Beach, IL
Pontoon Beach, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Pontoon Beach sits at the 9th percentile nationally for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — per USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model, built from its 2,911 counted buildings, not vegetation cover alone. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Pontoon Beach at the 9th percentile, close to its 9th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 8.7% of Pontoon Beach's 2,911 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 91.3% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Pontoon Beach against the rest of the country
Compare Pontoon Beach's two percentiles: 41st within Illinois, only 9th nationally — a gap of 32 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Pontoon Beach ranks 28,579 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,569 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 851 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Pontoon Beach
At the 9th national percentile, Pontoon Beach rates low 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
Even with 91.3% of Pontoon Beach 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 2,911 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Pontoon Beach. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Pontoon Beach, see the exposure-zones guide.