Swedona, IL
How exposed is Swedona to wildfire?
Swedona's 98 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.)
Fire likelihood alone (USFS's burn-probability figure) ranks Swedona at the 10th national percentile — 0 points below its risk-to-structures score, a gap driven by how much is actually built there.
Swedona's building exposure, zone by zone
USFS classifies 51% of Swedona's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 43.9% Direct and 5.1% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How Swedona compares
Within Illinois, Swedona ranks higher (43rd percentile) than it does nationally (10th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Swedona ranks 28,423 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 29,117 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 831 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Swedona and the insurance market
Swedona's low wildfire rating (10th 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.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 51% of Swedona 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 Swedona's figures come from
Every one of the two percentiles behind Swedona's 28,423-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Swedona's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.