Royal Lakes, IL
Royal Lakes, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities model puts Royal Lakes at the 9th national percentile for risk to structures, among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a score built from 134 actual buildings. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Royal Lakes at the 10th percentile, close to its 9th-percentile risk score.
Royal Lakes's building exposure, zone by zone
Direct exposure dominates in Royal Lakes: 59.7% of its 134 buildings, versus 32.1% Indirect and 8.2% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
How Royal Lakes compares
Compare Royal Lakes's two percentiles: 42nd 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, Royal Lakes ranks 28,546 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 27,532 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 846 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Royal Lakes
Royal Lakes's low rating (9th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because Direct exposure dominates in Royal Lakes (59.7%), the highest-leverage fix is defensible space, not roofing or vents alone — covered in the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 134 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Royal Lakes. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Royal Lakes, see the exposure-zones guide.