Firsthand Wildfire Recon with Erin Ashley, Ph.D.

In the wake of the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, Season 2 of Building Potential will focus on wildfire risk. These episodes explore what recent events reveal, what the industry still needs to learn, and how we can apply these lessons to build a more resilient insurance ecosystem—and a more resilient society.

In Episode 1 of the Building Potential – Wildfires Special, the VP of Risk Engineering at Archipelago, Erin Ashley, Ph.D., joins Archipelago's Founder & Chairman, Hemant Shah, to discuss:

• Urban wildfire evolution – The transformation of wildfire risk from remote forests to dense urban neighborhoods, with LA and Maui as recent examples.
• Compound hazard impact – How high winds and superheated air weaken buildings even before ignition, exposing vulnerabilities in design.
• Scaling resilient design – Why resilience must be incentivized through stronger codes and insurance-backed solutions to protect entire communities.

Watch, listen, or read along to the full episode below:

Hemant:
Welcome to Season Two of Building Potential, where we will continue to explore emerging challenges and new opportunities across the property risk management and insurance ecosystem. I'm Hemant Shah, your host, and given the devastation in Los Angeles, we're going to kick off season two with a series of conversations about wildfire risk. What we can learn from these recent events, what we need to learn and how we need to apply this knowledge to not only make our industry more resilient, but more fundamentally make our society more resilient.

Today I'm joined by my colleague Erin Ashley, Vice President of Risk Engineering at Archipelago. Erin earned her degrees in fire and resiliency engineering, including her PhD from the University of Maryland at Archipelago. Erin ensures that Archipelago's AI encodes our customers property schedules with the detailed, complete and validated property-specific data needed by all parties across the value chain to efficiently and accurately define and manage the risk of the account. Erin, thank you for joining me today to kick off season two.

Erin:
My pleasure, Hemant. Thank you for having me.

Hemant:
So let's dive right in. You've just recently returned from fieldwork in Los Angeles to do reconnaissance after the recent devastation of the fires, I believe you went to both the Palisades and Lahaina neighborhoods. We've all seen the pictures, but it must be gut-wrenching to be there firsthand in the field. What were some of your initial impressions?

Erin:
Yeah, it is always difficult to see these fires firsthand. I don't think that words can really describe how devastating these events are in the LA fire particular, I think what was most notable with this one to me was really the vast amount of damage. I think you had about 11,000 homes damaged in about a 50-mile radius area. So it really was just a massive, massive event for a relatively small square footage of area. The second thing that was most notable to me having researched these fires for 20-plus years was the changing aspect of wildfire. So if we go back 20-plus years ago and you go to any technical publications with wildfire, wildfire is toted as a disastrous thing that is beneficial. The forest, it's part of nature, it's part of this natural cycle. It's okay, you may destroy a few buildings, you may destroy a few animals, but at the end of the day it's this natural cycle of life.

Hemant:
So the emphasis on the wildland aspect.

Erin:
It's in the wildland, it's in the forest. Where we shifted, it was about 10 to 15 years ago, we introduced this concept of the Wildland Urban Interface and this is really that

Hemant:
The WUI, right?

Erin:
Yeah. One of my favorite acronyms. It's so much fun to say. And so the WUI stands for the Wildland Urban Interface, and really I think the first note of WUI in federal publications was 2001 Cytel. It's only about 20 years to where we started recognizing the fact that there is this area outside this wildland, so outside your forests that is more urban, that acts as that interface. The Wildland Urban Interface that is at a higher risk to wildfires. Now we fast forward to the last couple years and looking at the fires in Maui and the fires in LA and those fires are transcending that WUI. And so we really have almost urban conflagrations happening that are not adjacent to wildlands. They're adjacent to vegetation, but definitely not adjacent to these large forests that we typically are used to seeing in this wildfire discussion. And so it's become more scary to me as a researcher to really look at what we're seeing we saw in LA, and again in Maui is where these fires are really transitioning from what is natural in that wildland forested area to being very city-centric and urban events, which then increases devastation tenfold, a hundredfold.

Hemant:
That's a profound shift in the domain from wildland to really to urban conflagration. What do you think is causing that shift? Is it a combination of we are increasingly metastasizing our communities into the WUI interface? Is it about vegetation management? Is it about climate change? Is it all the above? Because it's remarkable to hear you give us that sweep of the last two decades of shift of the impact of the fires.

Erin:
I think that's the billion-dollar question, isn't it? So we can say it's climate change, but it's not just that we can say it's people moving to these quote WUI environments. We can say it's telework because people are allowed to move away from these cities now and still maintain their quality of life. But then we look at the last two major fires, again, Maui and LA, these are structures have been there since the 1950s.

Hemant:
Lahaina is not a new community. The Palisades and Altadena are not new communities.

Erin:
They're not new. And so something is changing and I don't think we really have a handle on what that is. I think it's a combination of all of those things that you mentioned and probably more that we're just not aware of at this point.

Hemant:
So when you were in the field, what were some of your additional observations as you walked the Palisades, then they walked Altadena, and did you see any distinctions or differences in the patterns?

Erin:
Yeah, so to be clear, I was only there for about a day or two and my field or conscience was relatively limited because of how soon after the event we were. One of the really interesting things that I noted and sort of stuck with me was the contrast in the recovery between the Palisades and Altadena. So typically when you have a disaster of any type, recovery is years in the making. It's not something that happens right away. And a lot of that is really based on the economics, it's based on the local governments. It's based on a whole bunch of factors that indicate how quickly a community can recover. One of the things that really surprised me as we drove through the Palisades looking at houses that were damaged, not the ones that were destroyed, but the ones that had smoke damage. The ones that were impacted slightly by the fire was in almost every single driveway there was a contractor truck.

So recovery was well underway in the Palisades when we compare that to Altadena, granted, EPA was there, FEMA was there, red Cross was there. The federal agencies and state and local were there. But the actual recovery in terms of getting people back in their homes has not yet started. And I really think this is where the economy of those two areas come into play. If we were to generalize, and again, it's just is my opinion, but if we were to generalize, I really think it's a function of one group really has the ability to self-fund the recovery, whereas the other group is probably dependent on insurance to recover. And that just takes a tremendous amount of time to get those funds in place to then get those trucks and those contractors back at those homes.

Hemant:
Well, you're touching even early in this conversation on the fundamental role insurability and widespread access to insurance can ensure resiliency and recovery, and it's wrenching that you're already seeing just in the short weeks that have happened since the event already, there's a different rate of the mobilization and the recovery. And we'll come back to that when we talk about the implications for the resiliency and the recovery of LA. But in many respects, communities like the Palisades may be the visible face of the community, but communities like Altadena are the soul of a community. And if there's recovery, that is not healthy. But we'll come back to that. We could have a whole discussion just of that observation in and of itself.

Erin, maybe we can shift gears a bit. As you mentioned, you've been studying wildfire risk not in the lab, but in the lab, but also on the ground for decades. And you've had firsthand experience with some of the seminal recent wildfires such as the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa in 2017, whole part of a whole complex of fires in Sonoma, Napa County 2018, the city of paradise got overrun in the campfire. You mentioned Maui Lahaina destroyed 2023. What are some of your observations from some of those previous fires? And then we can set that up on how that compares and contrasts to LA as we continue our conversation?

Erin:
I think that has, I think there's two parts is the thing that really surprised me the most. And I saw this going back to Paradise and back to the tubs fire, was this role of multi-hazards in resilience and then in performance of these structures,

Hemant:
Multi-hazards. But we're talking about wildfire.

Erin:
Yeah, so I think that's the misnomer. So when we look at all of these large fires, one of the things they all have in common is high wind speeds. So wind speeds obviously increase propensity for ignition and increase the flame lengths, all that kind of stuff that makes a fire more dangerous and fast moving. But I think the one thing that we really forget is when we get to a certain wind speed, we're above what we call the design level or a structure for a new structure. And in all of these fires, the winds were anywhere from like 50 to a hundred miles per hour. So we've exceeded in many of these events, the design considerations for our roof system, for our siding. And so what I've seen consistently in all these events is that we have the high winds. The high winds are impacting the structure, and so they may be peeling back that outer layer of that roof system, or they may be peeling back the siding of a building.

And normally in an event like this, we'd say, who cares? We're destroying a large community. Why is this a big deal? And I think what we're not taking consideration is all of those portions of that building envelope act as a fire resistant shell to that building. And as we increase these wind speeds and as we see these wind speeds impact that outer shell, so as our shingles peel off, we're exposing that combustible under material, that material underneath the non-combustible exterior. And I think at this point we just don't know what if any impact that has on the structure. So as we remove those exterior shingles, are we really seeing a larger prevalence of those roofs now igniting because we've released the combustible underlayment to the environment. So the first thing is how do we deal with this multi-hazard thing that happens with these buildings?

The second is I don't think that we really understand what's happening at the component level of our buildings. And so, if you can imagine, when we study building materials and building materials typically go through all sorts of testing, they get UL ratings, they get different stamps of approval. We test these building materials in straight line winds and we test these building materials with a certain amount of fire flame or radiant heat to really test their performance. What happens when we have a large wildfire is we have a certain amount of wind from the natural weather as that area is superheated due to the coming flame front, you have buoyancy that increases those wind speeds. I don't think we have a true understanding of how much those wind speeds are increased.

There's a feedback loop. And you're also taking all of that atmosphere humidity and the humidity that's naturally incurring in your structural components and you're drawing all of that out. More importantly though, I think which we don't really understand is you're creating turbulent flow. So as the superheated air moves around your structures, it's not moving in a laminar fashion like how these building materials are tested. It's creating a turbulent flow, and we just don't know how this turbulent flow and this increase in wind speed really impacts all of these building materials. And then we throw on top of that, we now have super heated gases and we know that building materials contract and expand with heat. I don't think, again, we really have a full understanding at that component level what happens with all of those billing materials and how that ultimately impacts the performance of these structures.

Hemant:
So going back to the wind, that's really fascinating what you say because I think many of us think about fire and wind is of course related, but in the context of ignitions. And the start of the fire, the Santana winds fan the flames of the ignitions and eat to the fires burning. But what you're describing is that the wind also is part of the hazard that affects the integrity of the structure itself. It's almost into protect the envelope. Is the primary design imperative for hurricane? It sounds like it's similar for fire. You want to make sure your windows don't crack, your vents are protected, your roof doesn't, shingles don't peel off because that exposes the more vulnerable elements to the or heat. Okay, so there's this feedback. It's not this wind as in it starts the fire, it's wind as is. It drives the hazard load on the vulnerability of the building. And there's interesting feedback loops.

Erin:
We think. So one of the things that was interesting in Maui when I was there was we had a lot of the local residents say, first this was the highest winds they've seen ever on the island. And then second, I kept hearing over and over again, there was roof systems flying everywhere and there was chunks of roofs falling, flying all over the ground as they were escaping this fire. And I was thinking to myself, the estimated wind speed was somewhere between 1680 miles an hour, and that's right on the design level for wind and roof systems, but it would not be enough really to peel back these full roofs. But when we start looking at the interaction between these winds, these turbulent flow, and then this superheated gas that's sort of coming before the fire, it's very possible that all this interacted then to then really impact those structures before the fire even got a chance to ignite those buildings. And we just don't know because there is a lack of data, a lack of buildings that are basically left to really see the impact that these things have on the combustibility or the performance of these structures.

Hemant:
So these kinds of crucial lessons learned, which are in some case you can create these insights in the lab or in the modeling, sometimes you need to go forensically into the field and you get the oral history of people's observations as their homes are burning. These lessons learned, how do they get codified and promulgated? I know you've been the lead representative with several federal agencies doing post-event, not just reconnaissance, but the reconnaissance is input into technical assessments of what happened and what can be learned to build back better and also promulgate better standards in the future. What is involved in those studies in your own experience? Because you've been intimately involved in several of those technical reports.

Erin:
It's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to be honest. Typically what happens in these studies is when an event occurs, we determine if it's an event that is we can study and that typically requires a very quick reconnaissance visit to the location. And so what we're looking for in that first visit, and it may be five days, it may be seven days, is we want to look for is there enough data? Is there enough evidence left? And so in wildfires in particular, it's very difficult to study these because there's just a lack of information.

So if you think about wind or floods, typically the buildings still standing after this event or some portion of it's standing with wildfires, you lose that whole structure. So I don't know how that building was built, the quality of materials, what was going on in that structure prior to that event.
So it's very hard to come back and sort of forensically study a lack of data for a lack of better terms. So we first have to determine is there enough there to study? And then we come up with a hypothesis, what can we study? What do we think initially happened in this fire? What can we provide to the local community in terms of their mitigation, rebuilding? And so we take a really deep dive into building codes in the local area, local ordinances, building practices, anything unique that may impact this study. And so that takes a couple of weeks to a couple months to really dive into the local situation of how buildings are constructed, why they're constructed. What's the legality around reconstruction?

Hemant:
It's not just a cut-and-paste. You actually study the local, the natural of how these communities were developed, how they were built.

Erin:
Yep. A hundred percent.

Hemant:
Baseline for your assessment.

Erin:
Yeah, you have to, and I use Maui as an example because Maui has a very unique situation in terms of the cost of living. And so because the cost of living is so incredibly high in or was in LOH, basically they allowed, the governor came forward and said, okay, we will allow a certain number of ADUs which are accessory dwelling units, and these are your grandmother homes in your backyard based your small little homes. And so I think it was three or four that they allow by ordinance to be in every single backyard home. And so these really impact the performance of the larger structure because these act as, like I said earlier, ladders, and so really understanding the culture of the community and what is allowed and what's not allowed becomes important. Once we get a handle on that, we then do a larger field investigation, and this can be anywhere from seven days to three weeks depending on the size of the disaster.

And it can be 20 to 30 experts in the field. And we all have our little piece that we're gathering, but we're basically taking as much information as we can. We're taking as many photographs as we can. We're working long days, long hours, and we're just taking all this information together with the hopes that we get as much as we can prior to these buildings being taken down or a large rain event or something that would degrade our evidence. And we go back home and we now have this pile of information that we have to sort through. And so that process is you're probably a month or two in the disaster at that point. Past that, then we have several months of really trying to figure out what happened. And at the end of that process, we come up with a series of conclusions and recommendations.

So for every conclusion and recommendation that we come forward with, we have to have an observation. So we try to maintain the integrity of all these studies by saying if we did not observe it, we are not going to opine on it. And so that makes sure we have this loop of opinion, observation, conclusion, and then we have a solid recommendation behind that. And once we get a list of a hundred-plus recommendations, we start the task of writing these reports and these reports can be 200 pages, they can 300 pages, whatever we need to do to get all the information in there. And once that information is in there, then we really can work with the local jurisdictions to get code adoption or code changes pushed through, or we can make best practice documents or we can give classes to the local engineers and architects. But from start to finish, it's easily a two-year process.

Hemant:
So it's a two-year. So that's actually the good marker for Los Angeles, it can take not just weeks or months, but sometimes years to do the deep analysis and reflection on what are lessons learned. So jumping and I guess part of the challenge though is that the timeline of recovery, because people want to rebuild their lives. Everything doesn't get put on hold for two years. So now we can come back to this for la, but I'm sure there's this tension between taking the time to do the work to discern what needs to be learned and then developing the recommendations to do better the next time around versus the human desire to get up and running quickly, get back in your home six months from now or three months from now or a year from now. Those two things can sometimes, I imagine, work in conflict with each.

Erin:
Other. Yeah, unfortunately, we measure recovery in years, not months. And so when we look at any of these large-scale disasters, I mean it's easily two to five years before people get back in their homes, partially because there's a lot of environmental aspects that have to be mitigated prior to rebuilding. And then there's the insurance payouts, and then it's the getting permits. I mean, all the local permitting agencies are overwhelmed with permits at that point, and that takes some time. And so it really adds on to the length of time it takes to rebuild these communities. It's relatively unfortunate.

Hemant:
Let's do a quick, if we may, a quick flash round on three events prior to LA that you touched on. And just quickly I'll just mention the event and then what's your key takeaway from that event? So 2017 tubs fire, 5,000 structures over 20 fatalities, 13 billion insured loss that year from wildfire. What was your key takeaway from tubs?

Erin:
The need for defensible space. So one of the areas that I looked at with tubs was Coffee Park. Coffee Park was a relatively new neighborhood compared to what we've seen with other impacted neighborhoods, upper-middle-class, neighborhood, absolutely gorgeous homes. A large part of Coffee Park was destroyed. Really, it came down to we need significant defensible space when you have this level of fire impact.

Hemant:
And you refer to that as laddering.

Erin:
Yes.

Hemant:
Laddering. Okay. 2018, 1 year later, Campfire Paradise completely destroyed. Over a hundred fatalities, 20,000 structures, 12 billion insured loss. What was that experience like?

Erin:
Oh gosh. I always say that Paradise was the fire that broke me. I had been doing disaster work for 10 or 15 years at that point. I had gone from Hurricane Maria and Irma in Virgin Islands to Puerto Rico, and then we got the call that Paradise was happening or we saw on the news, and I went directly from Puerto Rico and flew to California and we were in the field I think about 24 hours after the fire. So they were still doing body recovery at the time that I was in Paradise. And if you remember back to 2018 initially Paradise, I think they were estimating a thousand people missing, and that number eventually got reduced, but we didn't know what we were walking into. And so I worked paradise, and then four or five months later, I just stopped on disaster work. I remember flying home and every time I closed my eyes, every time I went to bed, all I could see was this disaster was the burned-out town of paradise.

So just from a personal standpoint, paradise was the one where I took a step back and took five years off from disaster work because it was so gut-wrenching to do these continually. But I think in terms of performance of buildings, I think paradise was more, the town itself was very much in a rural area. It was relatively in a forested area, and it was really about, again, can you get that separation from those structures such that we know these structures going to burn. They were relatively older homes. We know they're being impacted by the fire, but can we slow that burn enough or can we slow the impact enough such that we can save some structures? And so it really brought to light to me this concept of we're not just worrying about can I save my house from a fire, but can we slow the spread enough so that as a community, maybe my house isn't safe, but my neighbor's is. And so paradise, it was a stark reminder of that.

Hemant:
Yeah, that's important because it's another feedback loop because it's not just your house. Your house is the spread to the next house. If you slow the burn, you buy time for the responders.

Erin:
Exactly.

Hemant:
Intervene and protect other elements of the community.

Erin:
Exactly.

Hemant:
So it's a way of slowing the spread. Also, a form of resiliency because there's a human factor in the response and responders need time and they have to make triage choices on where to respond. And you buy time for the response to protect other structures

Erin:
Exactly

Hemant:
As well. Okay. Exactly. In 2023, Maui, that was just…

Erin:
Yeah, so Maui was tough obviously for the reason that it was also heartbreaking. Maui was a very unique situation in that, again, for a personal level, it really brought into what communities have to do to create affordable housing and how that impacts these events. And so with Maui, as I mentioned earlier, this was the first fire that I had been to where really saw it was more this urban conflagration. It was not near that WUI or not in the wildland, but again in this sort of urban area where just happened to be next to a mountain with some non-native vegetation. But more importantly for me it was we have a situation where we have relatively high price cost of living, so we build on smaller property lines, we build more things on that property. Like I said, the ADUs and all of that then goes into play on how these buildings react to an impending fire. So if we have a smaller lot size, you can't really get that separation that you want. If you start putting these extra structures on these properties to account again for the economics of living in that area, you're creating these ladders and so you can easily bounce from your wood fence to your a u to your home relatively quickly in these small areas. So this was the first fire that I really saw how the economics of living in such a high-priced area really impacted the structures and the homes in that area.

Hemant:
As you personally and the broader technical community has studied and reflected and learned from these past events, I know it's hard to summarize briefly, but what are some of the commonalities that you see in resilient structures and resilient communities?

Erin:
So I think that we need to separate the discussion of resilience and especially in wildfire into two categories. The first is existing structures, and the second is new construction. And new construction is probably one of the easier discussions to have. We know how to make a building more fire-resistant. We know what to do in terms of the roof system. We know what to do with windows. You double-painted windows we know to do with constructing one-hour firewalls for our structures. That is all codified in a lot of locations. There's best practice out there that allow us to do that. The more complicated part of that question is what do we do about these millions and millions of existing homes on these small parcel sizes, on these small lots where we cannot ask an existing homeowner to replace their windows or replace their roof or replace whatever. We also want to provide some level of resilience for these structures knowing these fires are going to continue to happen. And that really is, I think the ultimate question

Hemant:
That gets to the heart of is mitigation viable? I mean, clearly it is viable and it works when you zero in on one structure in a certain circumstances, but is it viable in scale because as you flag, it's the built environment that we need to be particularly concerned about the existing building stock. Does mitigation work or can it work in scale?

Erin:
The short answer is yes. I hate to say no considering my career choice. The short answer is yes, and we have a lot of laboratory studies that can show that we can build more resilient. We also have a lot of studies based on economics. There was losses avoided based on adoption building codes that was recently published by FEMA, which showed substantial decrease in losses if you adopt building codes. I think what we have not seen, and this is probably not a popular statement, but I think what we have not seen is large aspects of mitigation or resilience tested in this outdoor laboratory of the world. And so we don't have communities that were built to these higher standards that necessarily had to perform because of a wildfire or because of an event. And so we just don't have that knowledge basis of how truly this stuff performs the real world. I do think that, again, the testing and laboratory shows that resilience always pays off and the economic studies show that it pays off. But I would like to really see the benefit of resilience tested and performing well in the real world before we can definitively say a hundred percent yes.

Hemant:
So cautiously optimistic, but still more evidence is needed. 

Erin:
A hundred percent. Yeah, definitely.

Hemant:
Well, it'll be important as LA those two neighborhoods rebuild. That's an opportunity. Now, these are new, they will be rebuilt versus mitigating existing structures, but it's an opportunity to build back better in scale. You mentioned the lab a couple of times. What's your assessment of the quality of wildfire modeling that is used in the insurance industry and other adjacent sectors to quantify the risk?

Erin:
I think that question's better for you, Hemant. You have more experience in that.

Hemant:
Great. Erin, thanks for throwing me under the bus. As a recovering catastrophe modeler, we all say that we know that all models are wrong, some are useful. Wildfires, I think it's fair to say, is a particularly challenge peril to model. The physics are complex, the resolution is complex, the variability is complex. The human dynamic and game theory of fire response is complex, but it can be modeled. I think there's room for improvement. And I think I know on episode three of this series on wildfire, we'll be diving into some novel new methodologies for quantifying fire risk vulnerability out rather than the traditional approach is hazard in. So stay tuned. Listeners, thanks for ducking the questionnaire and boom, ringing it back to me. Maybe as we wrap up, what advice, now, I know it's early, but what advice would you have for policymakers in LA? And we already know it's quite a hornet's nest of stakeholders job for primacy to drive the recovery and there's tension between these different forces. What advice, from your perspective, studying this peril for years, for your whole career, would you have to ensure that it built back better and we build in more resiliency into our communities going forward?

Erin:
We think we have to incentivize resilience somehow. I think I mentioned last time we spoke, my husband and I are designing a home, and based on what I do, we're unfortunately, unfortunately designing on a mountain that tends to burn. And I can tell you that the cost to really build resilient is dramatic. And so your base level codes require a certain amount of resilience, but really, to get to that level of where you feel comfortable in these hazard-prone areas is definitely an added cost to these structures. So I think we need to figure out a way, whether it's through insurance or through some local program, to really incentivize resilience and make it so those costs to build a more resilient structure that may withstand some of these dramatic events is about equivalent to what we would build. Typically just meeting the base level code.

The second one is I really think we need to think holistically about these hazards. And so think about the multi hazard option, but then also really think about when we're designing these structures, where's the risk coming from? So physically, there's a certain area within a building property to where there may be more risks. So if you're on a hillside, that portion of the building that's adjacent to the hillside is going to be at higher risk for a fire than maybe your back portion. So really think holistically about what this event would look like when we redesign those structures. And again, go to your higher codes, your higher standards, your higher design guidance to give the best possible solution for building resilient homes. The information's out there, it's just a matter of integrating into our communities.

Hemant:
So it's a balance of standards and mandating pay for structures, but also, as you flag, creating the financial incentives to create the economic incentives to mitigate and or build back better. And I think you've touched on an important dynamic with the insurance industry. Insurance, when it's its best self not only provides extensive resources to ensure that people and communities can recover after the fact and is way more fundamentally when insurance is pervasive in the stream of commerce, provides incentives ante to create safer structures in the first place. And that's what we're trying to do. Yes, of course, we want to recover quickly, get people back on their feet, get those neighborhoods vibrant again, and get LA looking to the future again. But also, how does insurance create the incentives to reduce the risks of the next time the losses aren't as – and I think that's a call to action, the insurance, our regulators, and our marketplace to align around that important part of the mission. Not just paying claims, but the mission of making sure that structures are safe in the first place.

Erin:
Exactly.

Hemant:
Erin, thank you so much for this wonderful, wonderful discussion. And I know it was difficult for you to discuss some of your impressions of these fires and these things take a personal toll. I think for many of us, we study these problems, but we're two steps removed. We're in the lab, we're in the computer model, we're paying the claims, but then there's those of us like you who have been in the field and it's much more real and visceral. And of course, then there's those who are affected directly and our hearts go out to them and we have the most empathy. 

Erin:
Very much so. 

Hemant:
Because they're struggling to rebuild their lives. But thank you for your insights. 

Erin:
Pleasure. 

Hemant:
Wonderful discussion. I wish we had an hour and a half for this conversation. We might loop back and have another episode specifically on mitigation, Erin, and if we do, I'd be thrilled if you'd join me again for another conversation.

Erin:
That’d be great.