Willow Lake, IL
Willow Lake, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Willow Lake's 604 buildings earn a 18th-percentile wildfire-risk score nationally under USFS's model — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Willow Lake at the 18th percentile, close to its 18th-percentile risk score.
Where Willow Lake's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 65.1% of Willow Lake's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 34.9% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
Willow Lake against the rest of the country
Within Illinois, Willow Lake ranks higher (57th percentile) than it does nationally (18th) — one of the more fire-exposed places in a state that, overall, scores lower than that. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Willow Lake ranks 25,996 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 15,785 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 620 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Willow Lake and the insurance market
Willow Lake's low wildfire rating (18th 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.
Hardening a home in Willow Lake
With 65.1% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Willow Lake gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
Where Willow Lake's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 604 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Willow Lake. The exposure-zones guide covers what Willow Lake's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.