---
title: The Highest Risk Isn’t Always the Greatest Opportunity
description: XyloPlan and Fire Aside explore how fire behavior, property conditions, and resident readiness help agencies prioritize mitigation and measure modeled risk reduction.
---

[XyloPlan News, Resources and Insights](https://www.xyloplan.com/blog)

# [The Highest Risk Isn’t Always the Greatest Opportunity](https://www.xyloplan.com/blog/fire-aside-webinar-recap)

 Written by [XyloPlan Team](https://www.xyloplan.com/blog/author/xyloplan-team) | Nov 5, 2026, 5:22:12 PM

Fire agencies have more mitigation work than their time, funding, and community participation can support. Starting with the highest-risk properties feels defensible. But risk alone doesn’t tell you where limited resources can have the greatest impact.

That question brought XyloPlan’s Dave Winnacker and Fire Aside’s Jason Brooks together for our October 21 webinar, “The Highest Risk Isn’t Always the Greatest Opportunity.”

Together, they explored how fire behavior modeling, property assessments, and resident readiness can help agencies choose where to focus mitigation.

[Watch the recording](https://www.xyloplan.com/hubfs/Fire%20Aside%20Webinar%20Recap%20Oct%2026.mp4)

 

### **Fire moves through connected neighborhoods**

 

A home’s vulnerability can affect the homes around it. When fire transitions from vegetation into structures, burning buildings can become sources of heat and embers that spread fire through a neighborhood.

Fire Pathways™ modeling shows where fire can enter a community and how it can spread. That helps agencies evaluate where mitigation could protect the most structures, alongside the risk each property faces.

 

### **Choose an area where meaningful change is achievable**

 

Knowing where mitigation could affect fire spread is one part of the decision. Agencies also need to understand whether residents are ready to act and how much work remains.

Property assessments show what needs to change. Resident engagement provides insight into readiness to act. Consider those alongside fire behavior, and agencies can identify a manageable starting area where three things overlap:

- Mitigation can meaningfully affect fire spread.
- Residents are ready to participate.
- The remaining work is achievable.

The parcel is where individual actions happen. Evaluating those actions together at the block level shows their potential benefit to the surrounding neighborhood.

 

### **Measure what the work changes**

 

Completed inspections and resident contacts help agencies track program delivery. Measuring risk reduction requires another step.

As mitigation is completed, agencies can update property conditions and re-run the model to assess the change in modeled risk. That gives councils, boards, and community members a clearer connection between the work completed and its potential impact.

Start with a focused area. Complete the work. Measure what changed. Use that evidence to guide the next investment.

[Watch the recording](https://www.xyloplan.com/hubfs/Fire%20Aside%20Webinar%20Recap%20Oct%2026.mp4)

 

[Contact XyloPlan](https://www.xyloplan.com/book-a-demo) to learn how Fire Pathways™ can help connect community wildfire planning, mitigation, and operational decision-making.

[View full post](https://www.xyloplan.com/blog/fire-aside-webinar-recap)

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