The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA) have released a new framework to help local governments, fire services and community groups organize and scale wildfire mitigation programs.
The Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program Framework is designed to guide communities in planning, launching and sustaining coordinated efforts to reduce the likelihood that homes ignite in a wildfire and to support long‑term insurability in high‑risk areas.
The toolkit sets out program structure, home‑level mitigation standards and communications strategies that can be applied neighborhood by neighborhood. IBHS and APCIA said the goal is to move from ad hoc mitigation to more systematic, measurable and replicable community programs.
“Communities are learning how to live with wildfire because in many areas it’s no longer a distant threat - it’s a reality,” said Steve Hawks, senior director for wildfire at IBHS and a retired assistant deputy director at CAL FIRE. “This toolkit provides a consistent, research‑based program neighbors can implement in their communities to reduce the risk of home ignition and strengthen their neighborhoods, which also supports insurability.”
Wildfire behaves differently from many other natural hazards, often intensifying as it moves from wildland into neighborhoods. A single home ignition can trigger structure‑to‑structure spread, turning an interface fire into a community‑scale event. The framework is aimed at giving local organizations practical guidance to address that transition zone.
The Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program Framework combines IBHS’s mitigation research with APCIA’s market and policy perspective. It provides step‑by‑step guidance to plan, design and launch a local wildfire risk reduction program, from initial organizing through ongoing administration. It sets out science‑based home hardening and defensible space standards, including the 0–5 foot noncombustible “immediate zone” around structures that IBHS research identifies as critical to preventing home ignition.
The toolkit also offers assessment and training materials to prepare home assessors and support consistent property evaluations. It includes implementation tools and templates, such as program checklists, sample forms, funding considerations and administrative guidance, and outlines outreach and coordination strategies to engage homeowners, local partners and supply‑chain providers.
The launch comes as wildfire‑exposed property markets remain under strain.
In California, regulators are developing the nation’s first Public Wildfire Catastrophe Model, created under 2025 legislation, with development grants expected by the end of 2026. The model is intended to become a shared reference point for regulators and market participants assessing wildfire risk.
At the same time, regulators have begun reviewing wildfire models to allow insurers to use more sophisticated analytics in rate filings and to link expanded capacity in higher‑risk areas to approved models and mitigation incentives. FAIR Plan policies in California climbed to nearly 600,000 homes by mid‑2025, prompting warnings about the financial strain on the state’s insurer of last resort and underscoring how much exposure has migrated out of the standard market.
More broadly, more than 20 US states have accepted AI‑driven wildfire and hail models in rate filings, reflecting a shift toward property‑level catastrophe analytics. For insurers and reinsurers, consistent, science‑based community programs make it easier to incorporate mitigation into those models and to distinguish between areas that are taking meaningful action and those that are not.
“Wildfire risk is not going away. We must adapt by reducing the likelihood that homes ignite from embers, flames and extreme heat,” said Karen Collins, vice president of property and environmental at APCIA. She described community‑wide action, led by local officials and supported by property owners, as essential to reducing losses and easing pressure on insurance markets as climate risks grow.
“When mitigation is implemented at scale, property owners benefit from improved survivability and insurability, and communities experience reduced reliance on disaster aid and stronger fiscal stability that protects local tax bases and real estate markets,” Collins said.
Meanwhile, Kenton Brine, president of the NW Insurance Council, said the framework brings together “the best mitigation science with the most comprehensive, experience‑based knowledge available about community and property‑owner engagement,” and argued that it invites state and community organizations to access proven tools that can help “lead to more stable, accessible and affordable property insurance markets.”
Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, said that while the science behind mitigation is clear, the challenge is “working together to implement meaningful wildfire preparedness strategies that make homes safer and more insurable.” She said the framework helps homeowners understand both physical mitigation steps and financial preparedness for wildfire risk.
The framework offers a potential reference point for underwriting guidelines, eligibility criteria and resilience incentives in wildfire zones. Insurers exploring credits, deductible structures or capacity commitments linked to mitigation can use the IBHS/APCIA standards as a common benchmark.
From a regulatory standpoint, a widely supported, science‑based framework provides a clearer basis to demonstrate how mitigation is being recognized in pricing and coverage decisions at a time when state regulators are closely scrutinizing non‑renewals and rate filings in high‑risk regions.
The toolkit can also serve as both an advisory and placement aid. On the advisory side, it allows producers to move beyond broad messages about “doing more mitigation” and instead point to specific, evidence‑based actions that can influence insurability. On the placement side, the framework’s checklists and assessment templates can help brokers pre‑qualify risks before marketing them, which is increasingly important in E&S markets that have become central to placing catastrophe‑exposed property.
