Steward, IL
Steward wildfire risk explained
USFS scores Steward at the 1st national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally), a figure built from 170 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Steward at the 1st national percentile — 0 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
Steward rates 94.7% Minimal exposure against just 5.3% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 170 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Steward against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Steward's 1st national percentile and its 8th percentile inside Illinois, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Steward ranks 31,295 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 26,016 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,343 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Steward
At the 1st national percentile, Steward 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
Even with 94.7% of Steward outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Steward's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 170 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Steward. The exposure-zones guide covers what Steward's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.