Watseka, IL
Watseka, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Watseka lands at the 9th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 3,013 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Watseka at the 9th percentile, close to its 9th-percentile risk score.
Where Watseka's buildings actually sit
Most of Watseka's buildings (96% of 3,013) 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.
Watseka against the rest of the country
Within Illinois, Watseka ranks higher (40th percentile) than it does nationally (9th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Watseka ranks 28,673 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 5,417 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 863 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
Watseka's low rating (9th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Watseka's 96% 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
Every one of the two percentiles behind Watseka's 28,673-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Watseka, see the exposure-zones guide.