(Image source: KatRisk website.)
KatRisk (Berkeley, Calif.) has launched expanded wildfire risk modeling capabilities powered by Technosylva (La Jolla, Calif.) operational fire science.
The capabilities combine Technosylva’s physics-based wildfire modeling with KatRisk’s catastrophe modeling and portfolio analytics to support wildfire underwriting, pricing, portfolio management and climate risk assessment, according to a KatRisk statement.
Martyn Sutton, General Manager, KatRisk.
KatRisk says the new capabilities are designed to help insurers and reinsurers move beyond static hazard maps and historical loss assumptions by modeling how fires ignite, spread, intensify and translate into financial loss under changing real-world conditions.
“Wildfire risk is no longer stationary,” comments Martyn Sutton, General Manager, KatRisk. “The conditions driving catastrophic fire are evolving rapidly, yet many traditional approaches still rely heavily on historical views of risk. By integrating operational fire behavior science directly into catastrophe analytics, we’re helping insurers better understand not just where fires have happened, but where catastrophic fire conditions may emerge next.”
The model considers factors including fuels, terrain, slope, weather, wind, smoke and off-footprint impacts, urban fire spread, and accumulation of wildfire risk across portfolios and regions.
Technosylva Fire Science
Technosylva’s wildfire modeling platform has been developed over more than 30 years, according to KatRisk. The company says the technology is used by utilities, fire agencies and wildfire agencies across more than a dozen countries.
Joaquin Ramirez, CTO and Founder, Technosylva.
“Technosylva’s wildfire science has been tested in front-line environments where decisions directly impact lives, infrastructure, and critical services,” comments Joaquin Ramirez, CTO and Founder, Technosylva. “Bringing that operational rigor into insurance workflows creates a fundamentally different standard for understanding wildfire risk.”
Portfolio and Climate Risk Applications
KatRisk says the new capabilities include high-resolution wildfire spread modeling at 30-meter resolution across the continental U.S.; dynamic short- and long-term hazard views; climate-change adaptability across scenarios and time horizons; smoke modeling driven by fire physics and Air Quality Index impacts; and property- and neighborhood-level vulnerability modifiers.
The capabilities also include urban conflagration modeling developed with CAL FIRE and PG&E and validated against recent wildfire events, including the Palisades and Eaton fires, according to KatRisk. The company says the platform can process event sets exceeding 50,000 years in seconds.
The wildfire capabilities are part of KatRisk Intelligence, the company’s scientific foundation for catastrophe modeling and hazard analytics across wildfire, flood, severe convective storm, tropical cyclone wind and earthquake.
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