Saratoga, CA, September 16, 2026 — Santa Clara County FireSafe Council (SCCFSC) and
XyloPlan jointly announce a partnership to offer XyloPlan’s proprietary Fire Pathways™ platform
as part of SCCFSC’s product portfolio, giving clients the most advanced capabilities to disrupt
fire pathways. At the core of XyloPlan is their proprietary Fire Pathways™ Architecture — a
system designed to model how fires move through communities and tell where mitigation can
interrupt the advance of fire.
Fire agencies are under pressure to do more with less. Budget constraints are real. Community
expectations are rising. And the fires themselves are changing. "Fast Fires" — the wind-driven
fires that move from wildlands into neighborhoods faster than suppression and evacuation can
keep pace — have fundamentally altered the risk equation. When a fire is moving at that speed,
the decisions that determine whether a community survives or suffers city-scale loss have
already been made. These decisions defined how neighborhoods were designed, where
vegetation was managed, which mitigation projects received funding, and whether anyone
modeled how fire would actually move through the built environment. By the time the first engine
arrives, the outcome is often already in motion. Fast Fires demand a fundamentally different
approach to modeling. XyloPlan is the only purpose-built platform to address this threat.
According to Seth Schalet, CEO, Santa Clara County FireSafe Council, “When it comes to
wildfire danger, speed – not size – is the real threat to communities and infrastructure. Evidence
indicates this trend will only accelerate. The critical question to know is whether the community
was prepared before the fire ever ignited. Our partnership with XyloPlan enables our clients to
answer yes to this question, providing the opportunity to save homes and lives. That is the core
of Santa Clara County FireSafe Council’s mission.”
"Seth and his team have spent years building trust with the communities they serve, and that
trust is what turns analysis into action. Fire Pathways models how fire is likely to move through
a community, from surface spread to ember cast to structure-to-structure ignition, and then
shows the minimum amount of work that will change the outcome. That gives SCCFSC's clients
a prioritized plan, a dollar-denominated return on every mitigation investment, and a defensible
case to bring to funders and insurers. We are proud to partner with the Santa Clara County
FireSafe Council to move communities across the county, and well beyond it, from studying
wildfire risk to measurably reducing it." — Scott Cheeseman, CEO and Co-Founder, XyloPlan
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a 20-year history, Santa Clara County FireSafe Council's core
mission is to mobilize the people of Santa Clara County to protect their homes, communities,
and environment from wildfires. A trusted partner across the government, fire service, corporate
and WUI residential communities, SCCFSC has led some of the most complex hazardous fuel
reduction projects in the region. With a board of directors and advisory board that has deep
expertise across the wildfire ecosystem — including wildfire and environmental research,
academia, emergency management, regional planning, technology solutions and wildland
firefighting leadership — SCCFSC is uniquely positioned to lead cross-sector collaborations and
government-private partnerships in Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County and beyond. For more
information, visit https://sccfiresafe.org/.
XyloPlan is the only fire intelligence platform purpose-built for the fast-moving, wind-driven "Fast
Fires"; that cause city-scale loss. Its proprietary Fire Pathways™ Architecture models how fire is
likely to move through the built environment, including speed, ember cast, and structure-to-
structure ignition, then identifies where mitigation will change the outcome and what that risk
reduction is worth in dollars. XyloPlan serves fire agencies, insurers, utilities, and communities
across the western United States, aligning them around a shared, defensible understanding of
risk. Founded in 2023 and based in Sonoma County, California, XyloPlan is disrupting fire
pathways and safeguarding communities.
Contact our team to learn more.