Prairietown, IL
How exposed is Prairietown to wildfire?
USFS scores Prairietown at the 14th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 117 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Prairietown at the 15th percentile, close to its 14th-percentile risk score.
Where Prairietown's buildings actually sit
65.8% of Prairietown's 117 buildings fall in USFS's Indirect exposure zone — ember cast rather than direct flame — against 34.2% Direct and 0% Minimal. Vent screens and roofing material matter more here than lot clearing alone.
Prairietown against the rest of the country
Compare Prairietown's two percentiles: 52nd within Illinois, only 14th nationally — a gap of 38 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Prairietown ranks 27,000 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 28,294 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 696 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Prairietown
Prairietown's low rating (14th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Hardening a home in Prairietown
Prairietown's 65.8% Indirect-exposure share points at embers, not flame contact, as the main pathway — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing rank ahead of defensible space here. Detail in the home-hardening guide.
Where Prairietown's figures come from
Prairietown's 14th-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 Prairietown's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.