Washington, IL
Washington wildfire risk explained
Washington's 7,025 buildings earn a 13th-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, Washington's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 14th percentile nationally.
Washington's building exposure, zone by zone
Most of Washington's buildings (85.2%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone. At 7,025 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
How Washington compares
Washington's 50th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 13th national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Washington ranks 27,286 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 2,442 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 726 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
Washington's low wildfire rating (13th 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.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With ember exposure the dominant pattern in Washington (85.2% Indirect), vent screens and roofing material tend to matter more than lot clearing alone. The home-hardening guide covers both.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 7,025 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Washington. For more on what indirect exposure implies beyond Washington, see the exposure-zones guide.