Salem, IL
Salem, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Salem's 3,627 buildings earn a 10th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Salem's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 11th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Salem's buildings (83.4% of 3,627) fall outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones entirely — that doesn't zero out the score above, it means the risk is regional, not structure-by-structure.
Where Salem ranks
Compare Salem's two percentiles: 43rd within Illinois, only 10th nationally — a gap of 33 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Salem ranks 28,326 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,624 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 820 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Salem
At the 10th national percentile, Salem 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
With 83.4% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Salem 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Salem's 28,326-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Salem, see the exposure-zones guide.