The Science that Saves Properties & Reduces Premiums

As long as we’ve been advancing civilization, we’ve counted on scientists to protect us on this unpredictable planet. Ancient Egyptians tracked the star Sirius to predict Nile floods, saving harvests and preventing famine. When Rome kept burning, engineers developed firebreaks and building codes. After the 1900 Galveston hurricane killed over 8,000, meteorologists started systematically tracking storms. Science has always been humanity’s answer to environmental chaos.

One of nature’s growing threats is wildfires. They’ve destroyed entire communities in tourism-heavy locations like California and Hawaii. Uncontrollable fires have destroyed more than properties and possessions – they’ve left many either uninsurable or with premium increases too high to pay.

Could scientists have a solution to mitigating the danger of wildfire damage to the point of lowering insurance premiums?

History says yes. Commercial wineries in California’s wine country, a very high wildfire hazard zone, also say yes. And they aren’t guessing.

Science gave one winery in Napa a 28% reduction in their insurance rate, while increasing their coverage limits 60% and when a lightning strike ignited fire occurred on the property during the Long Fire in August of 2025, no protected structures were burned.

When another property in Riverside California faced non-renewal and an impending loss of coverage, they managed to identify risks, act on them and not only avoid losing coverage, but secure a renewal for 21% lower than the alternative option and 45% lower than last-resort FAIR plan.

So how is science able to take highly vulnerable agricultural and hospitality operations on sprawling, multi-building properties and successfully mitigate damage and positive rates of insurance acceptance, rates and coverage?

I spoke with Michele Cunningham, Head of Marketing for FortressFire, a company blending technology and science for good, transforming 96% accurate wildfire risk assessments into actionable protection and maximum insurability for residences, commercial enterprises and communities.

It starts with understanding with extreme precision how your property and every structure on it – not your neighbor’s, not your zip code’s – could actually ignite.

Related: Emergency Housing For Its Southern California Timeshare Owners Evacuated By Wildfires

Fire Doesn’t Follow Zip Codes

Fire doesn’t care about “high hazard zones.” Fire follows physics. Traditional wildfire risk models look at areas – red zone, orange zone, high risk, moderate risk. But two properties 100 feet apart can have completely different risks depending on their specific characteristics.

FortressFire analyzes the five pathways that can ignite fire. Convective heat is direct flame contact – when fire physically reaches your building. Radiant heat is energy projected through the air, preheating materials before flames arrive. Then there’s ember entry, which causes 70-80% of structure ignitions during wildfires. These wind-blown embers enter through vents, gaps and openings. Ember accumulation happens when embers land on roofs, gutters or decks and build up until they ignite the surface. Finally, structure-to-structure spread occurs when fire jumps from one building to another.

Understanding these pathways changes everything about mitigation strategy. The traditional approach was clear everything within 100 feet – but fire physics shows that’s not what actually protects structures. A single unscreened vent might be more dangerous than a tree 50 feet away. A wooden fence connecting to your building creates a direct fuel pathway that matters more than the vegetation beyond it.

When you understand exactly how fire could ignite your specific structures, you can prioritize the mitigations that will actually work.

The Tech Making the Science Actionable

Understanding fire physics is one thing. Applying it to your specific property? Tech can help.
Satellite imagery can now map individual trees, identify structure outlines and capture roof materials. Artificial intelligence processes this data for thousands of properties in minutes – what would take human assessors weeks or months. Computing power models fire behavior for your specific property layout, showing how flames, heat, and embers interact with your buildings, vegetation and terrain.

FortressFire’s approach creates a Property Ignition Model (PIM) score from 1 to 500, showing overall risk across those five ignition pathways. Properties don’t receive vague recommendations like “improve defensible space” or “harden structures.” They get specific, actionable instructions: replace these 12 vents with exact specifications, remove these 8 trees marked on the aerial map, install fire-resistant material on specific structures, create 5-foot clearance in exact locations.

The technology can assess properties remotely across 12 states, then validate findings with onsite inspections that catch what satellites might miss. FortressFire has completed over 25,000 assessments for the California Association of Realtors alone.

And when they backtested their model against 35 actual California wildfires using CALFIRE damage inspection data, the predictions held up with 96% accuracy – the model could predict which structures would burn and which would survive.

But does precision science actually work when real fire comes?

Related: Braving the Butte Fire Evacuations in California

Four Fires, Four Properties, Zero Losses

In Sonoma County in June 2024, the Point Fire burned 1,013 acres. A commercial winery sat well within the fire perimeter – the kind of location where properties typically face severe damage or total loss. CALFIRE issued evacuation orders. The property team left, uncertain what they’d find.

When they returned, no structures burned, no losses occurred. The mitigations they’d implemented after their FortressFire assessment worked exactly as the physics predicted. The winery operation, the hospitality venue, the future experiences to be had – all survived because someone knew exactly what to protect and how.

Another Napa Valley winery experienced the Toll Fire in July 2024 – 41 acres burned, CALFIRE planes dropped water and retardant overhead. The winery enrolled in FortressFire’s monitoring and protection plan after completing their assessment in Fall 2023. Alert systems triggered, protection protocols activated, property survived intact.

Three other wineries faced similar tests. A Riverside property received an imminent threat alert three days before the LA Complex Fires in January 2025 – monitoring systems detected the dangerous combination of fire weather, low moisture and wind patterns. Staff executed their pre-planned response and stood ready when fires approached. Another Napa operation experienced a lightning strike that ignited fire in August 2025 – the assessed buildings survived while an unprotected house required emergency aerial intervention.
Four properties. Four actual wildfires. Zero losses to assessed and mitigated structures.

The Premium Reductions That Prove the Point

Surviving fire matters. But so does surviving your insurance renewal.

The economics work because the science does. Properties that conducted FortressFire assessments and implemented prescribed mitigations saw premium reductions from 10% to 28%, with some gaining coverage increases up to 60%. One Riverside County winery facing complete non-renewal secured new coverage 21% less than an alternative quote and 45% lower than the FAIR Plan.

According to FortressFire, typical mitigation investments range from $15,000 to $75,000 depending on property size and complexity. Annual premium savings run $40,000 to $100,000 or more. Properties often recoup mitigation costs within one to two years while gaining protection that could prevent losses measured in millions.

This matters because the insurance market for wildfire-prone areas is in crisis. Hotel insurance costs increased 15.3% in 2024 according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Vineyard insurance premiums jumped from $600 per acre before 2017 to $1,200-$1,500 now – a 133% increase. Major carriers like State Farm, Allstate, and Farmers have withdrawn from high-risk areas entirely. California’s FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort, has tripled to cover over 350,000 properties.

When you can prove specific risk reduction with data, you have something to negotiate with. When you’re guessing, you’re at the mercy of a market that’s not feeling particularly merciful.

Beauty and Safety Finally Share the Same Address

No one books a wine country getaway to stare at gravel and concrete. The scenery isn’t optional – it’s why guests come.

Traditional wildfire mitigation forced an impossible choice: safety or aesthetics. For hospitality properties where landscape drives bookings and property values, clear-cutting destroys what you’re protecting.

Precision changes the plan. When you know which trees create risk and which don’t, you can make targeted removals instead of clear-cutting. When you understand which vents are vulnerable, you can replace specific components instead of renovating entire buildings. When data shows where ember accumulation is likely, you can address surfaces without redesigning your whole property.

“No one wants to live on a lunar landscape, even though that would help mitigate risks” Cunningham emphasizes. The technology enables finding balance between aesthetics and wildfire resilience – something impossible with broad approaches.

For new builds and renovations, the cheapest mitigation is what you design in from the beginning. When architects understand what fire physics requires, they can select materials, plan structure placement, and design landscape elements that are both beautiful and resilient.

For existing properties, the approach provides a prioritized roadmap. Not everything needs to happen at once. Ground crews get specific to-do lists showing what matters. Some mitigations are permanent – replacing vents, upgrading materials, adjusting vegetation. Others are tactical, like seasonal fire retardant application during high-risk periods based on monitoring alerts.

What makes FortressFire perfect for hospitality businesses is they provide the assessment and roadmap that empower property teams to use their own maintenance crews to implement the plan or shop around for contractors based on specific needs identified.

Properties are in control of how and when the work happens, armed with clear direction about what will make the biggest difference.

Tech That Protects

Science has always been humanity’s answer to environmental chaos. We tracked flood patterns. We predicted hurricanes. Now we’re doing the same with wildfire – at scale. Individual properties. Specific structures. Precise vulnerabilities. And when monitoring systems detect imminent threats, property teams execute protection protocols before evacuating- turning data into action in the hours that matter most.

Most hospitality technology promises to make things faster, smoother, more efficient. Book rooms quicker. Schedule staff better. Automate communications. Those innovations have value. But this is different.

This is an innovation about survival. About whether properties in fire-prone areas can continue operating. About protecting the livelihoods of families who’ve built businesses over generations and the communities that depend on those businesses.

“The best claim is the one that never has to be filed,” Cunningham notes.

That’s the goal – not managing losses, but preventing them entirely through data-driven precision.
The properties that thrive in high-risk areas won’t be the ones that got lucky or hoped for the best. They’ll be the ones that turn guesswork into data and data into action – the ones that understood their specific risks and did something before fire came.

Kelley Ellert is the author of “Hospitality Innovation in Action” and founder of Waterwheel Marketing, a marketing agency + consulting hybrid that helps companies in the hospitality space tell their stories and reach the right people. She works with hospitality brands to create and distribute content that connects – through writing, video, social media, paid advertising and public relations.

Her agency specializes in building marketing systems that connect the dots—from content creation and lead capture to measurable results. She helps hospitality companies set up operations that don’t just produce marketing but track what’s working so they can adjust and improve. When she’s not writing this column, she’s working with clients to build marketing infrastructure that drives real business outcomes. Find her at waterwheelmarketing.com or on LinkedIn.