Preston Heights, IL
Preston Heights, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Preston Heights at the 19th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 1,188 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Preston Heights 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
92.1% of Preston Heights's 1,188 buildings sit in USFS's Minimal exposure zone, with only 7% rated Direct — risk here comes from regional burn probability more than proximity to burnable vegetation at the structure itself.
How Preston Heights compares
Within Illinois, Preston Heights ranks higher (60th percentile) than it does nationally (19th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Preston Heights ranks 25,457 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 10,716 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 576 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Preston Heights and the insurance market
Preston Heights'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
Preston Heights's 92.1% 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 Preston Heights's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 1,188 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Preston Heights. The exposure-zones guide covers what Preston Heights's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.