RZRisk

Comprehensive wildfire hazard assessment for property/casualty insurers

Underwriting properties in the Wildland Urban Interface is a unique challenge. Only good wildfire data will enable insurers to maintain policy value and reduce their exposure to loss. RedZone's RZRisk™ hazard identification service provides the specialized information that can meet this need. It evaluates a series of critical components to risk including the site hazard, regional hazard and historical fire frequency. It is also based on state-of-the-art fire behavior and weather models from qualified agencies and authorities in those fields.

How is RedZone RZRisk different than other Services?
Most wildfire risk services only evaluate the area immediately surrounding a home to determine their wildfire hazard score. RedZone recognizes the limitations of this approach. Even well- landscaped properties can be at significant risk due to adjacent areas of high wildfire danger. RZRisk looks at the individual parcel but also at the “big picture,” including the proximity to areas of greater hazard, susceptibility to extreme winds and the frequency and extent of local fire activity in the past.

The 2007 Witch Fire in San Diego County, CA destroyed 1231 homes. When evaluating just the 100 meters around each structure, only 41% of the lost or damaged homes were classified as High or Very High by the CALFire Fire Threat data model. RZRisk, however, classified more than 85% as High or Very High by using a more comprehensive approach.

Site-Specific Hazard

Site-Specific Hazard
The area directly around a home is a very important indicator of wildfire hazard for a structure. RZRisk incorporates CalFire’s fire hazard model, which evaluates a variety of key factors including fuel, slope and aspect. Threat modeling evaluates fire frequency, or the likelihood of a given area burning, and the potential fire behavior if it does burn. These factors are combined to create the Site-Specific Hazard.

Fire Zone Hazard

Fire Zone Hazard
While the area directly around a structure is important, it is large areas of contiguous fuel that sustain large fires. Hazardous terrain in the vicinity can also adversely impact response as well as fire behavior. This is why the majority of homes lost are in or adjacent to extreme wildland areas. RZRisk’s Fire Zone Hazard approach addresses this critical component by resampling data from the high-resolution models to reflect the general characteristics of the entire area.

Fire History

Fire History
Historical fire activity is a critical component in understanding today's fire threat. For example, an area in dry brush country can be expected to experience a higher frequency of large damaging fires than an area in heavy timber. RZRisk, however, looks at a database of more than 25,000 fire perimeters from the last 100 years. Fire history for the last 10 years and within 10 miles of a property are displayed to provide historical context for underwriters and risk managers

Access Options

RZRisk offers two options for data access giving brokers, underwriters and risk managers a flexible way to evaluate individual policies or applications, or to look at an entire book of properties.

• Web Service

The web service is a secure web application that allows corporate IT to automate data access for use within existing underwriting workflows. Data is returned in a configurable XML format.

• Online

RZRisk Online is a secure web application allowing brokers and underwriters to search by address, geographic coordinates or map click to return the RZRisk hazard data for a specific location.

Additional Services: RedZone also offers a suite of additional services including high accuracy geocoding, PIF address cleaning and analysis, geospatial data hosting and real-time web mapping.

To learn more, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call us at 303-386-3955