The Wildfire-Smart HOA
How Neighborhoods Protect Themselves Together with Insurance-Driven CWPPs
Across the West, a growing number of neighborhoods are waking up to the same realization: wildfire risk doesn’t end at the edge of your lot. In the era of megafires, community safety is a shared responsibility — and Homeowners Associations (HOAs) are uniquely positioned to lead the charge.
That’s why the Wildfire Insurance Solutions Hub (WISH) has launched a new platform specifically designed for HOAs. Powered by Athena Intelligence’s Voice of the Acre® (VOA), this tool brings advanced wildfire science directly to community leaders and residents — translating high-resolution risk data into clear action plans and neighborhood-wide awareness.
This isn’t about fear. It’s about building shared understanding, taking targeted action, and strengthening resilience — together.
Maps make it easy for humans to understand spatial context. This example shows 125 homes on a hillside, with Athena’s proprietary machine language tool which has converted public data into wildfire probabilities. Based on historic fires in the bioregion, each pixel represents the conditions of the land and that locations’ probability of participating in a wildfire.
Wildfire Doesn’t Respect Property Lines
Even the most hardened home can be jeopardized by the one next door. Wildfire doesn’t stop for fences, sidewalks, or HOA boundaries. That’s why the WISH HOA reports begin with the big picture.
The WISH HOA report assigns each home in the community a Wildfire Risk Class and shows a visual summary of wildfire likelihood across the entire neighborhood. The risk ratings incorporate:
- Terrain and slope
- Fuel density and vegetation type
- Wind corridors and spread direction
- Historical fire behavior patterns
The result is a community wide wildfire risk map that enables HOA’s to make proactive decisions before fire season begins.
Property-Level Risk, Down to the Details
Then the HOA report delivers individualized data for every home in the HOA. A report for each home includes:
- A Wildfire Risk Class (e.g., Moderate or Elevated), showing likelihood of being within a fire perimeter
- A Wildfire Risk Score (2–10), reflecting more granular, localized conditions that shape fire intensity
In this example, 119 homes in a community were rated “Moderate” in risk class — yet nearly 17% of the neighborhood land carried a Risk Score of 7, indicating much higher danger around certain homes or common areas.
This layered view helps residents understand that wildfire isn’t just about where their home sits — it’s about what surrounds it.
Two Pages That Could Change Everything
For each home, WISH provides a unique two-page report, with property specific information in greater detail than the community.
Each member of the HOA receives the summary report as shown above, and a 3-page report on their on their home. The first page, shown below, includes a satellite sourced picture showing the roof, terrain, vegetation and spacing. The 2nd and 3rd pages include a structure-level overview based on public records and responses from a homeowner survey.
In the example above, the conditions for miles around the home have a profile “CA_Med_Den_Interface_1_3_2” which represents only 1% of all the profiles in California. Properties with this profile represent 0.1% of all profiles that have burned in California, since 2017. The Wildfire Risk Class reflects whether this location is likely to be inside or outside of the perimeter of a wildfire and is Moderate for this address.
On the other hand, the more localized and nuanced Wildfire Risk Score is a 3 out of 10. This score also represents a mix of conditions, such as the proximity to the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and the home proximity to significant vegetation. Properties in neighborhoods that interface with vegetation generally have lower risk than those with an intermix with shrubs and trees. (See the example below.)
The 2nd and 3rd page of the specific home portion of the report reflect responses to the survey about the house. The survey seeks the information an insurer may request before making an underwriting decision.
The complete report is designed to give homeowners and their HOAs a roadmap for risk reduction, with an eye towards what will matter to property insurers.
Empowering HOAs as Resilience Leaders
This is mutual risk management for a neighborhood. The WISH platform helps HOAs:
- Coordinate defensible space and fuel-reduction efforts
- Encourage member participation in home hardening
- Apply for wildfire mitigation grants and Firewise® recognition
- Collaborate with local fire officials using credible, data-driven maps
When neighbors understand how their individual choices impact the whole community, engagement increases — and outcomes improve.
Kitt — this is where a couple of paragraphs can be added about Know Wildfire, N5 Sensors, Path & Focus and the other partners
Forward Thinking to Replace Fear
The traditional wildfire conversation too often begins with anxiety: insurance cancellations, rising costs, fear of loss. WISH helps HOAs reframe the narrative around empowerment and proactivity.
The same geospatial data is already informing insurance underwriting and is available to municipal bond investors and mortgage underwriters. WISH puts that power into the hands of the people who live with the consequences — homeowners and community boards.
Because the best outcomes happen when communities have the tools to protect themselves before disaster strikes.
Homeowner Associations in Today’s Wildfire Environment
In the past, HOAs were known for maintaining lawns, enforcing parking rules, and choosing paint palettes. In the wildfire era, their role is evolving.
WISH enables HOAs to embrace this next chapter, becoming hubs of community safety, resilience planning, and neighbor-led preparedness. The platform is easy to implement, cost-effective, and scalable for developments of any size.
The leadership of engaged communities, working with the Wildfire Insurance Solution Hub, can make wildfire risk something we manage — together.
Ready to Learn More?
If you’re part of an HOA in a wildfire-prone region, now is the time to act.
Better data drives better decisions. Better decisions build resilience. And resilience starts with someone willing to speak up.
WISH (Wildfire Insurance Service Hub) is dedicated to enhancing community and homeowner wildfire resilience. Transparently connecting wildfire insurance availability with established, tangible and proven wildfire mitigation strategies, features, maintenance and education creates a positive cycle of wildfire resiliency for communities, neighborhoods, and individual homeowners — leading to a loss reduction for insurers, and more affordable premium prices for the insured.
Athena Intelligence is a data vendor with a geospatial, conditional, profiling tool that pulls together vast amounts of disaggregated wildfire and environmental data to generate spatial intelligence, resulting in a digital fingerprint of wildfire risk.
Athena’s clients include financial services companies, insurance, electric utilities, and communities, including HOAs. Athena’s geospatial intelligence is incorporated into multiple products that can be accessed through an online portal. Athena’s data is currently used in wildfire mitigation plans (WMP) and public safety power shutoffs (PSPS), Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPP), property insurance underwriting and portfolio risk optimization.
Reach out to me at Elizabeth@AthenaIntel.io and follow us here, on LinkedIn or Energy Central.
