XyloPlan Launches Fire Pathways™ Technology to Revolutionize Wildfire Risk Management

SAN FRANCISCO, July 2024 – XyloPlan has officially brought its wildfire risk start-up company to market, powered by a grant from the renowned Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. With a mission to use data-driven decision-making in wildfire risk management, XyloPlan introduces its Fire Pathways™ modeling technology, designed to support fire-adapted communities by assessing and mitigating risk from potentially destructive wildfires. By quantifying and decreasing risk, XyloPlan also works with insurers to increase the availability of insurance in the same fire-prone areas.

“We’re thrilled to introduce our risk assessment and prioritized mitigation technology,” said Scott Cheeseman, XyloPlan CEO. “Based on direct experience and lessons learned working with fire departments, we are offering a solution that is optimized for protecting human lives and structures and will facilitate bringing beneficial fire to the landscape in fire-prone areas — ensuring a safer, more resilient future for everyone.”

When Fire Chief Dave Winnacker engaged with XyloPlan, his goal was to address the inconsistencies in wildfire risk assessment and mitigation prescriptions relative to his field observations. Winnacker worked with the founding XyloPlan team to develop an analytics platform that assesses risk for fast-moving, wind-driven wildfires and provides vegetation treatment recommendations that disrupt the routes where an approaching wildfire could outpace firefighting response.

“Slow-moving high-intensity fires aren’t burning down homes, because firefighters have time to defend structures prior to the fire’s arrival and traditional fuel breaks are immediately ineffective the moment they are breached by fire in a single location,” Winnacker said. “Traditional approaches are modeling wildfire risk and prioritizing mitigations to reduce intensity, while we need to focus our initial efforts on defending structures and critical infrastructure from the fast moving fires associated with conflagration level structure loss.”

The Moore Foundation’s investment enables XyloPlan to develop wildfire resilience technology in partnership with communities. “We are supporting XyloPlan to build data-driven and results-oriented wildfire mitigation technology that is applicable to and co-developed with communities in fire-prone areas,” said Genny Biggs, Program Director, Wildfire Resilience Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. “By conducting Fire Pathways pilots in multiple areas, XyloPlan will demonstrate a replicable model for prioritizing wildfire mitigations that will matter most to decrease vulnerability and strengthen community resilience.”

XyloPlan’s Fire Pathways™ technology is designed to provide insurers, local governments, utilities, developers, HOAs, and residents with a consistent view of wildfire risk. By sharing an understanding of risk, community stakeholders and insurers are aligned in how risk is being priced, as well as how to prioritize mitigations that can decrease risk. 

The key to XyloPlan’s novel approach to wildfire risk assessment and mitigation is its focus on the routes that will bring a wind-driven fire to a community, rather than modeling fire intensity.  Analyzing the fastest path of fire travel allows communities to understand where a fire may outpace the firefighting response, leading to catastrophic destruction. XyloPlan then uses machine learning optimization techniques to prioritize cost-effective recommendations for vegetation treatments that can disrupt and slow fire progression, buying critical time for firefighting efforts and evacuations.

Cheeseman added, “XyloPlan is modeling a shared view of risk that creates a virtuous cycle, where insurers incentivize homeowners and communities to mitigate risk in measurable and meaningful ways.” 

XyloPlan has been successfully piloting with a diverse range of municipal, developer, utility and insurance industry clients and partners, including Pacific Gas and Electric, San Ramon Fire District, Rancho Mission Viejo, Lake County’s Clear Lake Environmental Research Center (CLERC), City of San Luis Obispo and Paradise Recreation and Park District. 

For more information, please visit www.xyloplan.com.

About XyloPlan

With its Fire Pathways™ technology, XyloPlan creates a shared, data-driven view of wildfire risk — for insurers, local governments, utilities, developers, HOAs, and residents. XyloPlan models and prioritizes wildfire mitigations that disrupt Fire Pathways and slow wildfire spread into populated areas, supporting fire-adapted communities that can encounter wildfire without sustaining catastrophic damage. For more information, please visit https://www.xyloplan.com. 

About the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Gordon and Betty Moore established the foundation to create positive outcomes for future generations. In pursuit of that vision, the foundation advances scientific discovery, environmental conservation, and the special character of the San Francisco Bay Area.