Ste. Marie, IL
How exposed is Ste. Marie to wildfire?
USFS scores Ste. Marie at the 1st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 247 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Ste. Marie's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 1st percentile nationally.
Where Ste. Marie's buildings actually sit
Only 35.2% of Ste. Marie's 247 buildings carry Direct exposure and 0% carry Indirect; the remaining 64.8% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure.
Where Ste. Marie ranks
Ste. Marie scores 1st nationally and 11th within Illinois — close enough that its state context doesn't change the picture the national number already gives. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Ste. Marie ranks 31,071 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 23,234 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,279 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Ste. Marie's low rating (1st percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
What would actually reduce this score
Ste. Marie's 64.8% 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.
More on how this number was built
Ste. Marie's 1st-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Ste. Marie, see the exposure-zones guide.