Arborlook
Risk & Response
by Arborlook Insights

DeKalb County, IL

Community risk profile | NRI Score: 66.2 Relatively High

100,703
Population
14
Departments
28
Stations
23
Census Tracts

Natural Hazard Loss Profile

Expected annual loss across the 18 natural hazards in FEMA's National Risk Index. Life safety is expressed in fatality-equivalents, combining expected deaths and injuries. Property loss counts building damage only, separate from agriculture.

Natural Hazard Life Safety
1.29
expected fatality-equivalents per year, natural hazards only
21st highest of 102
Life Safety per 100k
1.28
natural hazard fatality-equivalents per 100,000 residents
70th highest of 102
Natural Hazard Property Loss
$28.6M
expected building loss per year, natural hazards only
21st highest of 102
Property Loss per Resident
$284
natural hazard building loss per resident per year
79th highest of 102

These figures cover natural hazards only. Structure fire, EMS, and motor vehicle incidents are not included in the National Risk Index and are not counted here, so this is not an all-cause life safety measure. For DeKalb County, the largest single contributor is Cold Wave, 66% of the life-safety total.

DeKalb County carries an expected 1 natural hazard fatality-equivalents and $28.6M in building loss per year. Rank chips compare the 102 Illinois counties. Nationally, DeKalb County ranks 457th of 3,222 U.S. counties for life-safety loss, 1291st for life safety per 100k residents, 626th for property loss, and 1984th for property loss per resident. Computed from census tract data covering every resident, independent of fire department boundaries.

Add fire mortality, cause, and loss

Natural hazard exposure is one half of the picture. The other half is what your departments run on: fire deaths and injuries, cause of ignition, dollar loss per incident. That comes from NERIS incident reporting, and it grows as departments serving DeKalb County enroll. Our Regional tier brings it together across your jurisdiction, with participating departments, alongside response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.

Talk to us about DeKalb County See what a department sees

What Drives the Loss

60%
37%
Property (buildings): $28.6M (60.2%)
Life safety: $17.7M (37.2%)
Agriculture: $1.2M (2.5%)

Total expected annual loss: $47,411,425 per year. Life safety is shown here in dollars, at FEMA's $13.7M value of statistical life, so the three shares sum to the total.

Hazards Ranked Two Ways

The hazard that threatens people is often not the hazard that destroys buildings. Both columns cover the same 18 hazards over the same year.

By life-safety loss ($/yr)

Cold Wave
$11.6M
Tornado
$3.6M
Strong Wind
$1.1M
Heat Wave
$600K
Earthquake
$295K
Lightning
$207K

By property loss ($/yr)

Inland Flooding
$23.8M
Tornado
$3.2M
Earthquake
$1.0M
Strong Wind
$236K
Ice Storm
$103K
Hail
$101K

Census Tract Risk Map

Shaded by quintile across the census tracts in DeKalb County. Gray tracts have no modeled loss or no resident population. Per-resident figures on this map use the National Risk Index 2020 tract population.

Fire Service Profile

14%
21%
64%
Career: 14% (2)
Combination: 21% (3)
Volunteer: 64% (9)
Residents per Station
3,597
census population per registered station
Stations per 100k
27.8
registered stations per 100,000 residents

Department composition covers the 14 departments registered in NERIS Public for DeKalb County, IL. Departments that have not registered are not counted. Station coverage divides census population by registered stations; department service areas overlap, so their populations are not summed.

Department Rankings

Fire and EMS departments serving DeKalb County. Click column headers to sort.

NRI Rating is from FEMA's National Risk Index, which measures community risk across 18 natural hazards using expected annual losses, social vulnerability, and community resilience. Life-Safety Loss uses FEMA's Value of Statistical Life ($13.7M per expected fatality) to estimate annual risk to human life.

Department boundaries and station counts are self-reported through NERIS Public and may not reflect current service areas. Population and Life-Safety Loss reflect each department's full jurisdiction. County-level risk metrics are computed from census tract data and are not affected by boundary accuracy. See full methodology.

Showing 14 departments
Department Est. Population Life-Safety Loss NRI Rating Stations
Sandwich Community Fire Protection District 27,672 $6.0M Relatively High 1
Dekalb Fire Department 33,600 $5.9M Relatively High 8
Burlington Community Fire Protection District 28,563 $4.6M Relatively High 1
Sycamore Fire Department 20,923 $3.7M Relatively High 3
Somonauk Community Fire Protection District 15,489 $2.9M Relatively High 3
Genoa-Kingston Fire Protection District 15,880 $2.9M Relatively High 2
Kirkland Community Fire Department 12,096 $2.1M Relatively High 1
Waterman Community Fire Protection District 9,354 $1.7M Relatively Moderate 1
Maple Park-Countryside Fire Protection District 9,747 $1.6M Relatively Moderate 2
Paw Paw Fire Protection District 9,811 $1.5M Relatively High 1
Cortland Community Firemans Association 7,793 $1.2M Relatively Moderate 1
Lee Community Fire Protection District 6,379 $1.1M Relatively Moderate 1
Shabbona Fire Department 3,590 $666.3K Relatively High 2
Malta Fire Protection District 2,789 $443.7K Relatively Moderate 1
No departments match your search.

Risk Snapshot

14.8%
Poverty Rate
13.9%
Age 65+
11.1%
Disability Rate
5.1%
Uninsured
52.7%
Pre-1980 Housing
2.1%
Mobile Homes
5.1%
Vacancy Rate
0.3%
Wood Heat
$75,536
Median HH Income

FEMA Disaster Declarations

2
Last 10 Years
8
Last 25 Years
Flood
Most Frequent

Response-level intelligence for your region

Our Regional tier gives county fire authorities and state fire marshals rollup dashboards across all departments in your jurisdiction: response time analytics, cross-department benchmarking, and coverage gap analysis.

Explore the Regional Tier See the Response Demo