Reducing Wildfire Risks One Tree at a Time

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Text: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. An image displays the slideshow presentation on a laptop screen. A red mug with a white umbrella logo sits next to the laptop. Logo: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers, 15 Years. Joan Woodward speaks to us from the corner of the presentation seated in her office. 

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JOAN WOODWARD: Good afternoon and thank you so much for joining us. I'm Joan Woodward, and I'm honored to lead the Travelers Institute, which is the public policy and educational arm of Travelers. So welcome to Wednesdays with Woodward, our last of 2024. 

This webinar series we started, as you all know, during the pandemic, and we've continued it because of your engagement. So, thank you for being here. As always, before we get started, I'd like to share our disclaimer about today's program.

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About Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Webinars. The Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) educational webinar series is presented by the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers. 

(SPEECH)
So today we're taking on wildfires. What's the latest? Where are they happening? And importantly, what can we as community members and homeowners do about them? 

We're going to explore all of this with one interesting twist. Our conversation today will have a special focus on trees and what they do for society, an important role that trees play and forests play in wildfire prevention. It's a fantastic topic with two truly amazing leaders in this field.

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Text: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Reducing Wildfire Risk One Tree at a Time. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers, 15 Years, American Forests, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, Connecticut Business & Industry Association, MetroHartford Alliance, TrustedChoice.com, National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, Master’s in Financial Technology (FinTech) Program at the University of Connecticut School of Business, Center for Risk and Uncertainty Management, University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business. 

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So before we get started, a huge thanks to our co-hosting organizations today, American Forests, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, the MetroHartford Alliance, TrustedChoice.com, the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, the Master's in FinTech Program at UConn, the Center for Risk and Uncertainty Management at the University of South Carolina Business School, and Connecticut Business & Industry Association. That's a mouthful. So, thank you all for co-hosting. 

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Text: Speakers. A photograph of each speaker. Text: Joan Woodward, Executive Vice President, Public Policy; President, Travelers Institute, Travelers. Jad Daley, President and CEO, American Forests. Michael Klein, Executive Vice President; President, Personal Insurance, Travelers. 

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We're going to start today's program with an opening presentation from two leaders in this field, followed by a discussion and then your questions, so get those ready. You're going to drop them in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen. So, let's get started, folks. 

Our first speaker today is Jad Daley, the 40th President and CEO of American Forests, the nation's oldest forest conservation organization, founded in 1875. Jad has a long record of leadership in this area. He's authored federal legislation, is regularly featured in national media and is co-author of multiple scientific studies related all to forest and conservation. Jad is also the co-founder and co-chair of 1t.org, which is a global platform dedicated to conserving, restoring and growing 1 trillion trees-- that's a lot of trees-- by 2030.

So after our opening with Jad, we're going to be joined by Travelers Executive Vice President, and my good friend, Michael Klein, who serves as President of our Personal Insurance business today, and has spearheaded this truly unique relationship with American Forests. This started to encourage all of our customers to adopt paperless billing. So, we're going to hear more about that from Michael in a minute.

Before Personal Insurance, Michael led our Middle Market business. He served as President of Commercial Accounts and was Senior Vice President of our Industry and Product Group. He joined the company in 1990 and has held various positions in Commercial Insurance, Underwriting Knowledge Management, Corporate Planning and Development, among many other things he does for us. So with that, I'm going to turn the virtual floor over to Jad for his opening presentation. And thank you both so much for joining me today.

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Jad's video feed replaces Joan's. He is seated in front of a green graphic background with the American Forests logo. 

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JAD DALEY: Great. Thanks so much. Really grateful to join you all today. And so my task here in the opening of this webinar is to set some framing for what's happening with wildfire today and how do we move together as a community to take action on it and to protect our communities more effectively. 

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Logo: American Forests. Text: Creating Wildfire Resilience Across America. A photo of a man planting a tree with a forest next to him, mountains in the background, and a bald eagle flying in the sky. 

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Look, here's the goal. You all do incredible work in the insurance community to keep our communities safe and resilient. And I'm just really grateful for that. And so what I want to talk about is, what are these complementary actions that we can take in reducing the risk of wildfire to enhance our ability to do that? What are the ways in which we can reduce these risks and help individuals and communities take actions to enhance their own resilience? 

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A photo of a wildfire at night in a forest with a house in the foreground. Text: What we lose: Lives, Property, Roads & Bridges, Respiratory Health, Drinking Water, Trails, Forest Products, Habitat, Carbon Dioxide. 

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And the first thing I want to do is just to frame out what's really at stake with the threat of wildfire to our communities across America today. And I'm guessing many people on this call are focused on those first couple pieces, direct threats to lives and property from wildfire across America. And of course, that is the leading edge of what's at stake. 

But I want to note that there's a ripple effect of impact across our communities, and it includes threats to infrastructure. The fact that wildfire destabilizes landscapes in ways that, for example, leads to mudslides that knock out highways across the western United States, just as an example. That the smoke from wildfire has become a major impact on respiratory health all across America, not just nearby, where wildfires are occurring, but literally across the entirety of the United States. That our drinking water supplies that come from our forests are impacted and are less effectively filtered and collected-- collected and filtered after wildfire.

Trails and recreation opportunities, the ability of our forest to generate forest products, habitat for wildlife, and the ability of our forests to sequester carbon dioxide and help us slow climate change. So really, this just incredible suite of forest benefits are all at stake when wildfires damage our forests and if we don't repair them appropriately. And so it's just absolutely critical that we address both the threat side of this and the benefit side of it in terms of how we confront wildfire.

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A timeline illustrated with three bear cubs by a tree, a hawk landing on a branch, and a black and white photo of a woman posing with a shovel with two men in suits with what looks like a government building in the background. Text: Our History: A forest champion for nearly 150 years. www.americanforests.org/our dash history. 1875: Concerned citizens found the American Forestry Association (now American Forests) to address rapid postwar development and intense wildfires. 1891: American Forests advocates for the federal government to set aside forest reserves, culminating in the eventual establishment of the US Forest Service in 1905 and National Forest System in 1907. 1921: Alongside Lady Florence Harding, American Forests launches memorial tree campaign in cities across the U.S. 1933: American Forests works with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to create the Civilian Conservation Corps, establishing millions of forestry jobs. 1976: American Forests leads passage of National Forest Management Act, which helps address wildfire risk. 2017: American Forests helps enact the “Wildfire Funding Fix” which enables U.S. Forest Service to access billions in emergency funding for wildfire. 2021-2022: American Forests leads efforts to secure billions for wildfire in the Infrastructure Law & Inflation Reduction Act. 2023: American Forests signs REPLANT Keystone Agreement to lead post- wildfire reforestation across America’s National Forests. 

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American Forests, I'm proud to say, has been on the wildfire crisis from the very beginning. 

American Forests is the oldest forest conservation organization in America. We were founded in 1875. And in fact, the impacts of wildfire all the way back then, almost 150 years ago, was one of the driving forces that led concerned citizens to found American Forests, and ultimately, early on in the history of the organization, bring people together from across America in the first American Forest Congress to identify the problems and identify how we can take action together, with things like public policy on different kinds of partnerships to better take care of our forests, including helping them become more resilient to wildfire. And that carries all the way forward today into some really exciting, very current public policy wins that we've had and new partnerships to deal with wildfire at the scale of the crisis that we're seeing today.

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Strengthening Our Commitment to Wildfire Resilience and Leadership. American Forests logo. A photo of a wildfire with a helicopter in the sky with cargo hanging down from it. Text: "Preventing the next catastrophic wildfire starts with how we recover from past burns. This new investment by the Biden-Harris administration is a further commitment to the recommendations put forward by the commission to support collaborative, locally led and climate-informed wildfire recovery and mitigation." Brian Kittler, Resilient Forests Lead, American Forests Member, Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission.

A photo of a firefighter lighting a backfire in some brush. Text: Restoring America's Forests for Wildfire Resilience in a Changing Climate: Organizational Strategy and Policy Agenda. Logo: American Forests. 

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And so a couple of ways that, in particular, our organization is leaning into this. First of all, we're really proud that my colleague Brian Kittler, who leads our Resilient Forests program-- that's all of our work outside of cities-- was named to the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission that was established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. And this was really an unprecedented effort to bring together leaders from across the public and private sector to assess the scale of the wildfire crisis that we face today, how it's changed and how we need to change our response with things like public policy, and partnerships, and investment at all levels of our society, public and private sector alike. And so Brian was part of crafting an incredible suite of proposed solutions from that commission that we're now working to help implement through public policy and through other measures. 

And we have published a forward-looking policy prescription that you can find online on American Forests’ website, outlining what we think are some of the most key policy measures that we can take to support an effective wildfire resilience response.

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Text: The Escalating Risks and Impacts of Wildfires. A map, titled Fire Perimeters 2000-2022, of the Sierra Nevada Range in California showing the areas of 12 wildfires, their names, the year, how many acres, and how many days. Text: Over 2.4 million acres have burned across the southern Sierra Nevada since 2000 due to wildfires. An article headline and photo from The Washington Post. Text: Wildfires used to be a western U.S. problem. Not anymore. November 11, 2024. The West has for years been adapting to more extreme fires and investing in firefighting resources. In a place like Connecticut, there hasn't been a reason to consider such steps, until now. A photo of red trucks driving down a road lined with trees on either side with the background filled with smoke. 

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And so the first thing to understand about how wildfire has changed is how the scale of it has changed. Across the western United States, for example, the extent of wildfire has more than doubled in just the last few decades. 

And California, and this map that you see here, and the scale of wildfire in California, exemplifies this trend. In fact is the extent of wildfire has more than tripled in California in just the last few decades. But it's really important to understand that while we might, for many people, might jump to this as a Western issue, it is now becoming an issue across the entire United States and across all of Canada as well. And that's been exemplified by the Canada fires last summer and reaching parts of Canada that were previously thought not to be at risk of wildfire, for example, in eastern Canada and central parts of Canada.

But also, just this fall, we've seen wildfire threats and wildfire exposure in the northeastern United States and mid-Atlantic United States at scales that we've never seen before. In New England, we used to jokingly call them the asbestos forest because they were-- our forests are naturally so moist in New England, they just generally have not been thought to be at risk of wildfires.

And yet, for example, in Connecticut, we've seen some extensive wildfire activity this fall. And so we really need to think about this now. Because of the way our forests are being changed by changing climate, the risk and the threat of wildfire is extending into places that we didn't think we needed to manage for wildfire resilience in the past. And that's one conceptual change we need to make.

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Text: Wildfires Are Growing in Intensity and Severity. An infographic appears over a background of a wildfire in a forest at night with a deer wading in the stream in the foreground. Text: As climate change creates warmer, drier conditions, wildfires are burning hotter, bigger, and more destructively. In California, forest fires covered four million acres in 2020 and 2021, equivalent to five Rhode Islands. Forty percent, or two Rhode Islands worth of forest, was damaged so catastrophically that they are unlikely to recover naturally. A horizontal bar graph shows the High Severity Fire Extent for the years 2010 to 2021. 2010 and 2011 have very slim bars. The bars are still short from 2012 through 2017, with every other year being a little longer. The 2018 bar is about three times the length as the 2017 bar and is labeled 287,000 acres. The 2019 bar is back to being very short. The 2020 bar is over three times longer than the 2018 bar and is labeled 819,000 acres. The 2021 bar says 845,000 acres. 

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But really importantly, it's not just that more land is burning, but it's that land is burning more intensively. And it's leaving our forest more intensively damaged as a result. And so that makes them less likely to recover. And so as a result, we have a lot more land that we need to actively restore and reforest after wildfire. 

And this graph that you see here just showing, for example, in California, the shift in the percentage of land burned in California burning so intensively that it won't grow back. This is leading to millions more acres across California, across the West, and increasingly across the United States, where we need to be able to step in after wildfire and do post-fire reforestation and do it in a way that we set those lands up that they won't just burn catastrophically again in the way that they have in the past.

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Text: Addressing Wildfire Resilience at Every Stage. Three photos. A firefighter sets small fires by lighting sticks on the ground in a clearing in a forest. Caption text: Before. A photo of a firefighter wearing a helmet who smiles at us with a soot-covered face. Caption text: During. A photo of three people in red hard hats, one holding a shovel, examining a trunk on the ground with bare trees in the background. Caption text: After. 

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In terms of conceptual frameworks, what I want to help us think about is, we really need a holistic approach. 

In the past, we've thought about wildfire predominantly in that middle part. What do we do during wildfire? And how are we fighting fires? And that part does have to change. Really importantly, there's good fire and bad fire.

Some fires are helpful if they're at the right scale and intensity that can actually help clear out our forests. And regular fires of the right intensity are actually part of keeping our forests from catastrophic burns. The problem is, now that we have so many areas of our forest with dead and dying trees, with greater aridity than ever before, dried out in ways that they haven't ever been in recent history, it leaves some of these areas vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires, the kinds that I've described.

And so, part of the “during” change is that we have to be very specific in using data and science to evaluate where do we want to let fires burn? And where do we want to fight them to avoid those catastrophic wildfires? So that's a really important shift in the “during” part.

In terms of preventing those fires in the first place, we need to do a lot more work before fire occurs, going into our forests, identifying those areas where forests are out of balance with their environment, where trees are dead and dying at incredible, unprecedented rates, and where, therefore, they're just tinder waiting to be lit, and go in and do things like prescribed burning, things like thinning forests, so that we can get them to the right health and balance, so that when wildfire does come through, it doesn't burn catastrophically. So there's been a wonderful effort at play to really dramatically ramp up things like prescribed burning, things like thinning forests, that can keep our forests healthy, and in balance, and ready for wildfire in the right ways. And then lastly, as I referred to before, we just have to move much more quickly and far more extensively in reforesting after wildfire with climate-informed approaches, resilience-informed approaches, where we're reforesting these areas in a way that they're designed not only not to burn catastrophically again, but to be more easily managed with tools like prescribed fire.

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Text: Mitigating Risks in Communities and Surrounding Forests. An aerial diagram of a house with dashed-line zones around it. The Zone 0 goes around the perimeter of a house 0 to 5 feet from it, including the garage and back deck. Zone 1 goes around the house 5 to 30 feet from it. Zone 2 is 30 to 100 feet. Text: Image: CAL FIRE. Image sourced from readyforwildfire.org/prepare dash for dash wildfire, slash, defensible dash space. A photo shows the side yard of a house with landscaping between areas of gravel. 

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So that's the work that we have to do out there in big, natural landscapes where a lot of these fires originate and really all the way down to the edges of our communities. But we also have work to do in our communities. And Michael will speak more about this in a bit. 

But we have to work right in and around homes to create defensible space. And that starts, most importantly, right adjacent to homes. So we're reducing the potential for embers from fires to come in and ignite right around homes. And then we need to create a gradation of defensible space of thinned areas. So we can still have trees and shrubs on our properties, but we need to make sure that they're aligned in a way that these properties are wildfire resilient.

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Text: Overcoming Barriers to Effective Solutions. A diagram with three horizontal sections, each with various phrases that are connected to each other in a network of red lines. The first section is titled, Key Inputs, and has two rows of inputs: Shared Stewardship, New USFS LT Analysis, Climate-Informed Forestry Principles, USFS Staffing for Project Development, Social License, Collaboratives, Skilled Workforce, Implementation Funding, Viable Wood Products, Workforce, Transportation & Facilities, Social License, Maintenance Funding. The next section says, To Increase Pace & Scale, Must Have: LT Planning & Prioritization, right-pointing arrow, Project ID & Development, right-pointing arrow, Environmental reviews, right-pointing arrow, Project Implementation, right-pointing arrow, Wood Utilization, right-pointing arrow, Maintenance Implementation (PrescFire, etc). The last section is titled, Barriers and Friction. Winners and Losers, Resistance to Agency Overhead, Institutionalized NGO Opposition, Lack of Consensus regarding Carbon Dynamics, Lack of Social License, Timelines for Review, Smoke hazards, Scale of Funding, Start-up Costs & Capital, Lack of Workforce Development, Sisyphus problem with policymakers. 

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Now, implementing the kinds of solutions that I've talked about, whether it's ramping up that work that we need to do before to thin our forests and prepare our forests for wildfire, whether it's how we fight fires, or whether it's reforestation after fires, is complicated. And no, you're not supposed to absorb this entire slide. In fact, it's meant to be confusing on purpose to show you all these different interconnecting variables that impact our ability to get this response right. 

This complexity that you're looking at is why we haven't yet been able to ramp up the things we need to do in our forests, like thinning and burning them before wildfire, at the scale and pace that's necessary. So this is what we're trying to solve for before, during and after. So you can really understand the complexity.

And you can understand some of the hidden levers in here, like social license, for example, communities being willing to accept the smoke that comes with prescribed burns, understanding that that smoke is an inconvenience, and in some cases, a health issue they need to manage. But that's balanced against the benefits that it provides in keeping us safe from wildfire. These are the complexities that we're trying to deal with in advancing a wildfire resilience response.

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Text: Success Story: Replanting U.S. National Forests for Wildfire Resilience. A photo of a woman posing with a man in a tan uniform. Text: Five years ago, American Forests catalyzed the advocacy effort that led to passage of the REPLANT Act. Today we are committed to help the U.S. Forest Service overcome the capacity barriers and innovation challenges needed to mobilize this historic reforestation investment. Logo: American Forests. A cover of a document with a photo of a wildfire and the title, Integrated Post-Fire Resilience Strategy. A photo of three people in hard hats and carrying equipment walking through a landscape with burned trees. 

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And so I want to close with an exciting success story of how we're really starting to move on this agenda at a scale that we never have before. And I'm going to focus-- this is a piece, particularly on the after-fire side of things, how we respond post-fire and on our national forests. And the fact is that our national forests have accumulated a 3.6-million-acre backlog of burned and degraded lands that we haven't had the funding historically to be able to reforest. 

And so these are lands that are remaining a hazard to our communities, as well as not providing all those benefits that we get from forests. And so American Forests dug in first on the public policy side with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to pass something called the REPLANT Act, which gives the Forest Service a five to 10-fold permanent increase in the amount of funding that's available to them, to the Forest Service, to catch up and keep up on this reforestation challenge. And now we've launched a new keystone partnership with the Forest Service to help them implement that funding and get that scaling up of reforestation right, so we're reforesting these lands in ways that they won't just burn catastrophically again.

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Text: Reforesting for Resilience. Landscape assessment & site preparation, Climate & biodiversity-informed tree species & seed selection, Adapted planting & natural regeneration techniques, Rigorous monitoring & adaptive management protocol. A cover of a document with a photo of a wildfire and the title, Integrated Post-Fire Resilience Strategy: Climate-Adapted Plan: Reforestation, fuel management, prescribed fire. Logo: American Forests. Text: https://datastories.americanforests.org/scor dash wildfire dash plan. 

(SPEECH)
And so the leading edge of that that I've alluded to a few times, but I want to be more specific on here, is really leaning into the science of what does wildfire-resilient reforestation look like? How do we have to change the way that we reforest these lands so they don't just burn catastrophically again? And what it essentially comes down to is how we assess the site and really understand each site for how it can uniquely support forests that can survive into the future.

And that involves things like adjusting the tree species and even the genetics of those trees, so that we're picking the right trees that are naturally wildfire resilient. Changing the way that we plant them. The number of trees, the density of trees to match, for example, the amount of water that's available on a landscape so the forest can remain healthy. 

And then, understanding that we're going to need to manage those landscapes in an ongoing way with things like prescribed fire to keep them wildfire resilient. That's what we're mapping out. We're using our scientific smarts, landscape by landscape, post-burn, burn scar by burn scar. We're mapping out that scientific prescription in partnership with the Forest Service.

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Reforestation Demands a Full Supply Chain Approach. A series of titled photos. Text: Partnership. A photo of two women in hard hats digging in soil with tree remnants scattered around them. Text: Climate Plan. A woman consults a map outdoors. Text: Seeds. A woman holding a bucket picks something from a tree. Text: Seedlings. Rows and rows of small potted plants in a greenhouse. Text: Project Plans. Two people speak together outdoors, one of them holding a sapling. Text: Site Preparation. A landscape with trees in the foreground and mountains in the background. Text: Planting. Someone plants a sapling. Text: Monitoring: Three people talk together outdoors, one of them holding a tall pole with a device on top. Text: Adaptive Management. Someone points up to treetops as they stand on a platform and hold a tall pole. A timeline-style flowchart appears below the photos. Text: 1, Partnerships, 2, Landscape planning, 3, Seed collection, 4, Seedling production, 5, Project development, 6, Site prep, 7, Planting, 8, Monitoring, 9, Adaptive Management. 

(SPEECH)
To implement that, back to the complexity of this, is, it takes a whole supply chain to deliver that solution. It isn't just about grabbing a bunch of trees and running out there and planting. But to implement that solution that I just described, you need to have enough trees. You need to have the right trees. You need to have the projects designed and the workforce ready to go out and do that work. 

And so I'm proud that what we have designed with the Forest Service is this whole supply chain model. Things like, how do we collect enough of the right seeds to grow enough of the right seedlings to do this work? We're working at this whole scale of complexity with the Forest Service to scale up reforestation five to 10-fold on our national forests and to do it the right way so these landscapes won't just burn again.

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Text: Celebrating Significant Milestones Reached. A photo of a wooden stake with numbers written on it placed in soil next to a charred log. A line graph titled, Shift in reforestation to address unplanned needs (post REPLANT). The graph has the years from 2018 to 2023 on the x-axis and numbers from 0 to 120,000 on the y-axis. A line that represents Harvest begins at just over 80,000 in 2018, goes down to about 65,000 in 2020, peaks at about 85,000 in 2021, then ends at 60,000 in 2023. A line that represents Fire begins at just under 80,000 in 2018, goes up to about 85,000 in 2020, down to about 70,000 in 2021, then peaks in 2023 at about 105,000. Text: The USFS has addressed 10-plus percent of reforestation backlog since passage of REPLANT. 

(SPEECH)
And I'm really proud to say we're making incredible progress. This is data from just the first two years of implementing the REPLANT Act, and through this partnership, scaling up reforestation done the right way in our national forests. And in fact, this data is soon to be trumped by new data from the Forest Service that will show in the first three years of the REPLANT Act implementation, at the end of this year, we will have reforested over a half million acres of national forest land, brought it back into resilient forest. 

And we'll have closed about 15% of the backlog of lands, an area, by the way, the size of Connecticut, Travelers, this 3.6 million acres of burned and degraded lands that we're fixing with this effort. We will have closed 15% of that backlog, over half a million acres, by the end of this calendar year. We're really proud of that progress.

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Expanding Wildfire Resilience Through Partnerships and Policy. A screenshot of the 1t.org website. A photo of several firefighters walking along a path carrying gear. Text: "It's time for bold, forward-thinking investments to reduce wildfires and restore the health of our forests. Inaction is not an option." Hilary S. Franz, Commissioner of Public Lands, Washington State Department of Natural Resources. A photo of a glowing wildfire at night. Text: Fire Funding. Fixed. An illustration of a pine forest with the American Forests logo in the corner. Text: Forests win big in Inflation Reduction Act. 5-plus billion dollars for climate-adapted forestry, healthier communities, and green jobs. A photo of a helicopter with cargo hanging below flying over a smoke-filled forest. Text: Partnership to Enhance Cross-Boundary Fuel Breaks Announced Between NAFO and the U.S. Forest Service. 

(SPEECH)
And so really importantly, that's just the beginning. We need that kind of success in the taking action before, the taking action during, as well as taking action after. And it needs to be on all lands, not just national forest system lands. So as Joan alluded to, I'm really proud that we and Travelers are part of a group called 1t.org, a global partnership to get this kind of work done at the right scale, and particularly the U.S. chapter of that global partnership, of different diverse organizations, state governments, like Washington State Department of Natural Resources, that's been a partner with us and with the Forest Service and others in doing this work. 

Partners like the National Alliance of Forest Owners that are bringing large landowners in to, in some cases, even do work on federal lands, where the federal government doesn’t have enough capacity, and advocating together for the kind of public sector investment that we need, as we had, for example, through the Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, in all the different actions that we need to take before, during and after. So, look forward to getting into more details about how we implement this approach across America in the rest of the discussion. And I'll go ahead and turn it over to Michael.

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A split screen shows Jad and Michael Klein's video feeds. 

(SPEECH)
MICHAEL KLEIN: Thanks, Jad. It's great to be here with you. And before I share a couple of remarks to supplement what you had to share, I want to do two quick things. First, thank Joan and the Travelers Institute team for having both of us here to talk about this important topic. And two, acknowledge that as we sit here today having this conversation, we have an active wildfire situation in Malibu, California. And I want to send our thoughts and prayers out to those that are dealing with that situation, either personally or there on the ground, helping to try to fight that fire. 

But it’s-- and it's interesting sitting here in Connecticut today, where we're going to get 2 or 3 inches of rain, to believe that at the opposite end of the spectrum, we're dealing with a very rapidly evolving and active wildfire situation at exactly the same time. But I think it does do a lot to highlight the importance of this issue that we're here to talk about today. If you took-- if you all took nothing else away from Jad's opening, hopefully one of the things you took away from it is why we at Travelers are so proud to partner with American Forests.

Just in that 10-minute opening, I think you saw the evidence of the passion, the expertise, the dedication, the focus that he and his team bring to this issue that is so important for all of us. And I'm proud to be able to say that we've been partnering with American Forests now for more than seven years and have worked together to plant more than 5 million trees over that time frame. But I also want to share that it's not just a corporation cutting checks to a foundation. It goes much deeper than that.

In fact, a number of members of the senior leadership team at Travelers, Joan Woodward, myself included, make an annual personal contribution to American Forests to offset the carbon footprint associated with our travel to our largest business conference of the year. And beyond that, it also extends into sweat equity. We have done almost 60 projects with American Forests over the past five years, involving hundreds of Travelers employees and our agency partners in fighting the good fight and working in partnership with American Forests to advance these initiatives.

So, we are thrilled with the partnership. Happy to be here to talk more about it. And then, just taking a step back and teeing up some of what we'll talk about the rest of the afternoon, first, you heard it from Jad, but I would reiterate from a Travelers perspective, we believe forests are important.

We see evidence of global warming and climate change increasing the intensity of a variety of catastrophes, including wildfire, but also extending to significant rainfall, flooding, and wind, and hail, and tornado exposure. That certainly impacts our communities and impacts our business. Trees are a great part of the solution. They reduce greenhouse gas and help lower temperature.

But they also have broader benefits, and Jad alluded to some of those, and we'll talk more about some of those. But they also help improve air quality. I will also admit that when we started the partnership with American Forests, Jad said it a second ago. He said, it's not just grabbing a bunch of trees and running out and planting them.

That's actually what I thought it was when we started the partnership. And we were happy to do it because we thought that was a good thing. But clearly, just simply planting trees isn't sufficient.

You heard Jad talk about how responsible reforestation requires a special approach. And we work with American Forests very specifically on targeted plantings of the right species in the right places to solve for the right issues, whether that is responsible wildfire-resistant reforestation in more rural areas, or whether that's urban reforestation to improve tree equity in urban areas, which is, again, another topic that we will talk more about. But certainly, I'm not the tree expert.

I'm not the forest expert on this call. But I do want to just demonstrate that we spend time with Jad and the experts to ensure that the work we're doing is done, done appropriately and done well. We'll also then spend some time, as Jad alluded to, talking about the fact that forests are part of the solution. But there are other elements of the solution to defending against wildfires.

Some of that solution is literally the active response to a wildfire event, providing resources to our agents and our customers to be able to defend structures against wildfires that are happening. Most of that is not what you see pictures of on the news, of somebody coming in and spraying foam on the house to keep it from burning. Most of that is actually more active management of the property. Taping vents closed, moving debris away from the home and creating less opportunity for the fire to spread to the structure.

But importantly, most of the work that we can do to help protect structures from fires is work that happens well in advance of a fire burning on the ground. And so that includes work that we can do in terms of the way the homes are constructed or the way homes are renovated. It includes managing the landscaping, and the tree density, and the defensible space around the structure.

And so hopefully by the end of our conversation this afternoon, you'll come away with a few tips and tricks that you can use, or you can advise your clients to use to be able to better help them protect and harden their homes and their residences from wildfire risk. And I look forward to engaging in that conversation as we go forward. And with that, I think I'll welcome Joan and Jad back, and we'll start the discussion.

(DESCRIPTION)
Joan's video feed is added to the split screen. 

(SPEECH)
JOAN WOODWARD: All right. Sounds great. Michael, Jad, thanks so much for your comments. And as you can hear, this is a huge priority for the company. And we're just pleased to have this partnership, of course.

So, Jad, I want to get to you first because I want to talk about data. We slice and dice data here. We're very analytical, as you know, in the insurance industry. But as a baseline, can you put some data around-- we know intuitively that trees are good for the planet and for our health. But what are the range of benefits? Can you quantify some of these things for us?

JAD DALEY: Joan, normally I'd start with clean air and water, but actually, in response, I was reading the questions that came in. And I want to actually start with a benefit that responds to a number of questions, which are, what about logging for forest products? I talked about prescribed burning and thinning, but I think a number of folks were asking, what do you think about managing our forests for forest products as well, which, of course, also has the effect of thinning them and making them less vulnerable to wildfire?

And I want to make really clear, American Forests is very supportive of forest products as a benefit for our economy, for the environment. It's the space-age material solution that's been with us all along, renewable and beneficial for us in so many different ways. And in fact, so statistic No. 1 is that the forest products industry alone in the United States supports almost a million jobs and 4% of the manufacturing economy. So healthy and resilient forests, we can manage them to renewably produce forest products of all sorts of diverse kinds, and that are a real benefit for our society on multiple levels. But let's get to the clean air and water part. Michael alluded to this.

Our forests are an amazing filtration system. And so the forests of the United States capture more than 17 million metric tons of air pollution on an annual basis. They also naturally sequester about 750 million metric tons of carbon dioxide on an annual basis, which is, like, 16% of all the carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. So they’re just an unbelievable-- our forests are an unbelievably powerful air filtration system for our health, and for regulating our climate, and dealing with the climate challenge that Michael alluded to.

I also want [AUDIO OUT] as such an important common need that we have across our communities, and the fact that well over half of our drinking water supplies in America come from a forest. In California, by the way, it's over 60% of the water supplies in California come from the Sierra Nevada alone. And [AUDIO OUT] across the country. Zoom across to my native state of New Jersey, where the most densely populated state in the country, where the water primarily comes from places like the Pinelands and the Highlands, the few large forest blocks that are left in that densely populated state. So this is our water filtration system as well as our air filtration system.

And then lastly, wildlife and recreation. Over 80% of wildlife species live in forests. And so the health of our forests is the health of our ecosystems and biodiversity. And it's also the ability for all of us to go out and enjoy these places.

I looked up a pretty amazing statistic that the Department of Commerce just found that the outdoor recreation industry is an over $1 trillion, now, contributor to our economy. Our national forests alone get 160 million visits. So when they're burning down, that's impacting the ability of people to go out and enjoy our forests, and by the way, also lift our economy in the process.

So I could actually keep going, but I'll stop there. It's just, our forests are this gift that keep on giving. And how we help them through this wildfire crisis, help them become resilient, remain healthy and resilient in the face of wildfire, is just pivotal for keeping all those benefits flowing to our society.

JOAN WOODWARD: All right. Thank you so much, Jad. I really appreciate you quantifying that. All right, audience, get ready. We're going to ask you a polling question. We do this on occasion.

So for all of my friends out there, I want to know-- I have received a Red Flag Warning in my community over the last several months. So how many people have received this Red Flag Warning? And let me just talk about, what is a red flag warning?

It means when warm temperatures, very low humidities, stronger winds are expected, combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger. And so how many people out there have got that Red Flag Warning? OK, we're looking at some results coming in now.

Wow, this looks to be about half of the audience is saying they received a Red Flag Warning in the last few months in their communities. So that seems to be a lot of people, half of my audience. Michael, so where and when are these wildfires occurring today?

In the U.S., obviously people typically think it's on the West Coast, and it's not their problem. But how should we be thinking about it more broadly? And really, who needs to pay attention to this?

MICHAEL KLEIN: Yeah, it's a great question, Joan, I think. It's interesting, if I could ask two follow-ups to that question, I would ask, where is everybody? And what you would find is, they're not all in the western U.S. And then the other question I would ask is, the first time you got one, did you know what it was?

Because we're in the business. We partner with Jad and the team. The first-- I live in Connecticut, and I got multiple this year. And the first time I got one, I was like, what's a Red Flag Warning? And I think that illustrates the point.

There was a time, I think, when the perception broadly was, this is not only a West Coast thing, this is a California thing, or maybe they only happen in California, the Sierra Nevadas. But we have seen, since our partnership with American Forests began in 2017, we have seen wildfires extend from Southern California to British Columbia, Canada, to eastern Canada, to the south central United States, and to the Northeast. Just this fall, Metro-North was closed due to a brush fire.

We had wildfires burning in the state of New Jersey a month ago. Most folks can remember when we had the orange haze over the northern U.S. for weeks on end due to the wildfires in eastern Canada that Jad mentioned earlier. So this is not an issue that only is relevant to a subset of the population in the country or on this call. This is an issue that's relevant to all of us.

And it is exacerbated by the extreme fluctuations in weather. Again, as I mentioned, 2 to 3 inches of rain falling here in Connecticut today and wind-driven wildfire in Southern California at the same time. Those extremes in heavy precipitation followed by lack of precipitation and going from the spring that we had here in the Northeast, where we had too much rain, to a dry summer, and actually shifting back into drought conditions this fall is what leads to the conditions that support those wildfires and increase that wildfire risk.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, thank you for that. So what are the lessons learned, maybe Jad, from some recent fires? What have we learned and taken away from those?

JAD DALEY: Yeah, I think to keep it pithy for people, when we thin, we win, which is a little bit of a shorthand for thinking about it. I mean when we treat our forests, prescribed fire thinning, when we have active management of a forest that's producing forest products, and so that we have more active management of all kinds in these wildfire-prone areas, that is-- that's the foundation of wildfire resilience, what we do before. Everything else is a rearguard action after.

And so, one of the things we must do is make sure that we're investing at the same scale in these actions that increase resilience, alongside the actions that are helping us fight fires when they do occur in that after part as well. And so, I want to give a great example. The Caldor Fire, which was a particularly damaging fire in California that raged out of control and was surging across the mountains, the Sierra Nevada mountains.

When it reached South Lake Tahoe, there was an area that had been intensively thinned over many, many years as part of a really thoughtful, multi-year wildfire resilience project. And the wildfire dropped dramatically. It was also complemented by defensible space actions that had taken in the community.

So there was less for firefighters to have in terms of embers flying into the community and creating fires within the community.

And so basically, the wildfire response was able to push it away and direct it away from South Lake Tahoe. And it's really been viewed by many folks-- There's been some debate in the forestry community of some folks saying, hey, can we really fix this? Should we just let it all burn and let our forests sort it out?

And I think what we're seeing again and again is proof positive that we can't afford to do that. Our forests are so out of sync, as Michael's been describing, and significantly, because of climate change. Our forests are so out of sync with the natural rhythms and the natural fire regimes that we can't let them sort it out. We have to make these interventions that get them ready and resilient for wildfire.

And this work in South Lake Tahoe that protected this community from the Caldor Fire I think is just really proof positive that that's the approach that we need again, and again, and again, all across the most fire-vulnerable communities. And really, now we need to get ahead of that by saying, we need to do that in the most fire-vulnerable communities and start working in other areas where we can start to anticipate elevated fire risk, some of the places that Michael has talked about in the eastern United States, for example, where, if, in a place like the Pine Barrens region of New Jersey, if wildfire ever increases to the scale there that we're seeing in the West, there's a lot of homes and lives at risk. And so this is the time to actually work ahead of the curve in those places where wildfire risk is rising, at the same time that we're doubling down our efforts in the places that are in the thick of it right now.

JOAN WOODWARD: So just to follow up on that, what tips the scale between a naturally occurring beneficial fire and one that causes the widespread destruction? Can you give us the-- how to think about that?

JAD DALEY: Thanks, Joan. It's exactly the right question. And I think it really, more than anything, comes down to the condition of the forest when the wildfire hits. And so I want to give an example that will help people understand the magnitude of the way that our forests have changed, and therefore, wildfire risk has changed, is that wildfires have only burned over, up and over, and down the other side of the Sierra Nevada twice.

And it's happened both within the last couple of years. And that's because the drying effect that Michael described, literally baking our forest dry with a changing climate, combined with forest health challenges. For example, as our forests dry out and become weakened, they're less able to resist things like pine needles. So it's this synergistic effect of a drying forest that leads to making them more vulnerable to other kinds of forest threats, including ones, in some cases, that have been there all along.

And that combined effect of the weakening of our forests means that fires can just burn in places that they haven't before and with this increased intensity. And so the fact that they can now burn up and over the Sierra Nevada in places that used to be essentially inflammable is, to me, proof positive that it's all about forest condition. That's the limiter on this, where fires can go, and how intensely they'll burn, or the driver of how intensely they'll burn. And so that's why we really-- in terms of this risk assessment and prioritizing where we need to take action.

And I'm sure there'll be questions folks will have about how does this change our understanding of risk factors? We really need to look at the condition of the forest in different places to help us understand risk in all the nuanced ways that are necessary for prioritization and how we deal with this crisis.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, thank you. We're going to go to some rapid-fire questions. I want to talk about reforestation and protecting your communities. A couple of questions here. How much land needs to be reforested today in the U.S., and how do you know what kind of trees to plant? Michael had raised this as an-- and I never really thought about the different kinds of trees. So if one were to take this on in their own community, can you give us some advice?

JAD DALEY: Absolutely. Well, the No. 1 thing to say is that, writ large, we have identified in a tool that I believe has been put in the chat here, called the Reforestation Hub-- it's ReforestationHub.org-- 148 million acres of different kinds of reforestation opportunities, all across America. And look, I just need to stop and say, Travelers has been the most amazing partner, our single largest partner, by the way, in doing that work of reforestation in every manifestation, from reforesting these burned areas, to bringing trees in cities as nature's air conditioning in the neighborhoods that need them the most.

So, we have been working across this whole spectrum of all these more tree opportunities. But to bring that down to another scale that people can wrap their heads around, as I mentioned, the U.S. Forest Service alone has identified this 3.6 million acres, an area the size of Connecticut, to put that in scale, of land that needs to be reforested. Across all public lands in the United States, we've identified an area the size of West Virginia, about 17 million acres of land that needs to be reforested, predominantly from wildfire, but with a couple of other causes as well.

So I hope that's helpful for people. But we're talking about an area the size of Connecticut, an area the size of West Virginia. There's a lot at stake there. That's a lot of forest benefit for our country to do that work. And so to your question about the right-- how we make sure we're doing that the right way, we have a range of different resources.

We have a “How to Plant a Tree” section of the American Forests website, which includes information about not just how to plant a tree, but how to select the right tree for a homeowner’s goals or for a community’s goals. And all the way to the very sophisticated, deeply science-based planning, like the example that I showed in my presentation, where, in that case, we're looking at an area of about a million acres of land in Oregon and across this vast area, doing this analysis to think about all of the different tree species and genetics questions, and how they're planted questions at the scale of a large reforestation effort like that. So we have really a range of scientific tools that we're excited to share with people, depending on how they're touching in on this, whether it's at the homeowner level, or whether it's being involved in some of these larger-scale efforts.

And I think from our perspective, our organization is committed not just to doing more, but we have to do it better. If we don't get the science right, just planting more trees that are just going to burn again, catastrophically, for example, is not a win. It's actually a step backwards. And we have to get those kinds of scientific details right.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, thank you for that. So, Michael, I want to pull you back in here. So under your leadership, Travelers decided to get involved, and as Jad just said, one of the largest partners in reforestation with his group. So why is it that we're involved? And actually, what is our program? So if you go paperless billing, tell us about what our program is and why we're doing this.

MICHAEL KLEIN: Sure. So our program is, we plant a tree for-- in a variety of situations depending upon our interaction with our customers. The biggest volume of trees that we plant is we plant a tree for every customer that elects to go paperless. It's a great win-win-win.

It's a win for the environment. The tree gets planted. It's a win for American Forests because it advances their goals and their objectives. It's a win for us because we save the money of printing the paper and sending it out. And it's a win for the customer because it's part of a better digital customer experience.

And so that one, to us, is where most of the energy and effort is. But we also, as I mentioned, our management team, you and I both, Joan, contribute to planting trees to offset the carbon emissions associated with some of the events that we do as part of our overall environmental program here at the Travelers. We plant trees for customers who participate in a program that we have called Travantage, which is a way for Travelers customers to get discounts on a number of products that they buy. And more recently, we actually started to plant trees in honor of customers who passed away.

JOAN WOODWARD: Wonderful. Wow. I didn't know that last part. So that's wonderful, Michael, and thank you, again, for introducing our company to this amazing nonprofit. So, I want to pivot a little bit and talk about practical things-- I like to do this on my webinars-- very practical things that you can advise our audience. There's substantial research out there demonstrating how we can protect ourselves, how we can be more resilient. So, what are the steps to start creating that wildfire-resistant yard around our homes, Michael?

MICHAEL KLEIN: Sure, Joan. It's a great question. And I'll ask us to put up a couple of visuals to support this one.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Wildfire Prepared, A Program of IBHS. A photo of a house with the roof outlined, the windows outlined, and the attached fence outlined. The driveway and landscaping around the house are also outlined about 5 feet from the house. Text: Roof: Choose a Class A fire-rated roof maintained clear of debris. Choose noncombustible gutters & downspouts. Building Features: Install ember & flame-resistant vents. Ensure 6-inch vertical noncombustible clearance at base of wall. Defensible Space: Create & maintain the home ignition zone (0 to 5 feet) including the removal of branches that overhang this area. Clear & maintain the underdeck area; enclose low-elevation decks. Maintain yard clear of debris. Replace combustible fencing within 5 feet of the home. 

(SPEECH)
And it really is, you can think of it, and Jad had a visual of defensible space that was concentric rings around the home. I'll show it from a little bit of a different visual, but you can think of what you can do that way, and really does start with the structure, the way your home is built originally, or modifications that you can make to the structure in the area around the home that can make it more defensible. 

Joan, both you and I have been to the Insurance Institute for Building & Home Safety, which is where this visual comes from, where they actually do test burns of structures to help better understand what materials are more resistant, and what fire building approaches are more resistant. And so, in this picture, you see a number of those elements, whether it's the rating of your roof and the noncombustible gutters and downspouts you see mentioned there. You can install different attic vents in your home that are more ember resistant.

In fact, one of the main causes of houses to burn in wildfires is embers get into the attic through the vents, and then the fire starts in the attic. And that is actually how the house ultimately burns. And so, one of the first things our wildfire defense partners do when they respond to a wildfire event is go tape those vents up. But you can actually install vents that are more ember resistant to keep those embers from getting into your attic.

Then, you go from the structure to what's next to the structure, and I won't cover all of it here. But I'm sure a number of folks on this call have fences around their homes. And my guess is many of those are wood fences. And my guess is most of those wood fences abut the house. And actually, the wood fence comes up and comes in contact to the house.

Another key source of ignition for a house burning in a wildfire is the fence starts on fire, and then that fire spreads to the home. And so what you see on the right-hand side here is, this looks like a chain-link gate. But if you intersperse a metal or fire-resistant section of fence in the portion of the fence that touches the house, that's another good way to prevent or allow your house to sustain a wildfire for longer. And again, I won't cover all the detail here.

You see the link in the chat. A lot of this is available through IBHS.org, which is an industry organization that we participate in that helps folks manage, again, wildfire defense and other property protection issues.

(DESCRIPTION)
An illustration of a house and yard as seen from the street. On the left is a house. Above the house it says, Zone 0, 0 to 5 feet, noncombustible zone. To the right of the house is a tree. Text: Remove overhanging tree branches. A shorter tree appears to the right of the first. The text in the space between the trees says, Trim tree crowns to 10 feet apart from other trees. Next to the tree trunk of one tree, below the first branches, it says, Trim branches up at least 6 feet. The area above the space with the trees says, Zone 1, 5 to 30 feet. On the right end is another tree in Zone 2, greater than 30 feet. Text: Remove bushes from under trees. 

(SPEECH)
This is actually a different representation of what Jad talked about. But as you go further and further away from the home, you manage it differently. 

So once you get 5 feet away from the home, there may be places where you can have the right types of trees. But what you don't want is you don't want a tree that's going to have a lot of combustible material in proximity to the house, so you see, removing the overhanging tree branches because they're more likely to help that fire spread. Then, when you get further away from the house even more, this is where Jad says, it's the right trees in the right places.

And so he said, when we thin, we win. That's represented by removing bushes from underneath trees. You're trying to spread out the ignition sources on the property, further away from the home, and further away from each other. Because one of the things that happens in a wildfire situation is, if you get multiple sources of ignition in proximity to each other, and they all light up, that usually is the thing that's the catalyst for that fire to spread further.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. So, let's move quickly from the yard, which was a terrific explanation of what you should be doing, to the home itself. So, there are opportunities exist there to better protect our homes. I know IBHS has some more research on that as well.

MICHAEL KLEIN: Yeah. A lot of that is the home construction. One other thing that I would mention is just the way that you manage it. So, we didn't talk about, and that picture didn't have, for example, a picture of the deck in the backyard.

But how many of us have a deck on the back of our house, and we store a bunch of stuff underneath it? The wildfire demonstration, Joan, that you and I saw at IBHS, there was a cornhole game underneath the deck made out of wood. So now you've got a wood ignition source underneath your house. So, in addition to the structure and the surrounding environment, the way that you maintain and manage your home is another way that you can really protect yourself.

JOAN WOODWARD: So, we're talking a lot about planting trees. But insurance companies, as you know, Michael, of course, sometimes recommend removing trees from your property. Can you talk about those distinctions and why we're asking clients or customers to remove trees? And what is your advice for those folks out there that have trees near your home?

MICHAEL KLEIN: Sure. And I think this is where Jad talks about it being complicated, and I'm sure he'll comment. So on the one hand, from a climate and a cooling standpoint, trees near the home help provide shade, keep the home cooler. You don't need to run your air conditioning.

So from a broad-- balancing the equation from an environment standpoint, trees providing shade to the home can be helpful. That said, from a wildfire protection standpoint, they're ignition sources. And from a wind, and hail, and tornado standpoint, they are essentially missiles or damaging elements that, when they come in contact with the house, cause damage.

So, broadly speaking, from a managing your property standpoint, large trees next to the home are a challenge for a variety of reasons. And that's why you will see us and others come to policyholders and say, cut those overhanging branches because they could fall on the house, or they could be a wildfire ignition source, and plant the trees further away from the property. But again, it's a balancing act.

JOAN WOODWARD: Great. All right, Jad, same question to you. You all have some great advice for homeowners about how to plant a tree, what trees to pick. Can you share any tips for us?

JAD DALEY: Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, I think Michael just said something really important, which is this is a multivariable equation. The calculus, if you're in a wildfire prone area, is different from if you're in an area that isn't.

And so I think part of the responsibility for us is to provide guidance about tree selection, and about tree placement and management that really understands those nuances, and help folks make good decisions in the context that they're in. And so I think that's really the first piece of it, is for each homeowner to assess the different risk factors and also the goals that they have. That natural cooling goal is really, really profound.

You can reduce the cooling load within a home by as much as half with well-placed trees. And they don't have to be directly adjacent to the home. They can be strategically placed around a home that's far enough away to protect the home, and yet also to provide the right kind of shade, and the right types of cooling benefit.

And so that's just a perfect example of one of those benefits we want to provide. But let's do it the right way in terms of understanding the nuances of each site. So resources that we've provided, we've tried to provide some of that kind of information.

But there's also, really important for homeowners to consider working with a local tree care company or other professional expert, who can come in and do a very site-specific analysis for them to identify how to optimize these tree benefits. And then I think the other piece of the equation is about how trees are planted and cared for. Because unfortunately, planting a tree is a lot easier than having one be healthy and survive that establishment period, as well as be maintained in a way that it doesn't develop risks over time, as Michael said, for example, trimming the branches as the tree grows, so you keep it within the space that you had originally identified.

And so I think people really, understanding that they need to budget for and plan for that ongoing maintenance, some of which they might do themselves over time, some of which they might bring in a tree care company to help with over time, is definitely part of the calculus in coming up with a really informed plan for trees around the home. And let me just add one last thing, Joan, just to say that part of the equation here is what people are doing on their own properties. But part of it is also all of us being sort of informed and active citizens on behalf of the whole equation that we've talked about here. What's happening around our communities, and what's happening in our communities.

I talked a couple times today about the social license that we need, for example, to support government agencies like the Forest Service doing prescribed burns around our communities, knowing that the smoke that's created, and maybe folks worrying about the damage that might be happening to their forest is actually protecting the community. It's actually enhancing the resilience and complementing the actions that homeowners are taking right around their own property. So I think there's a-- we need to take care of our own backyards. But we all need to think about ourselves as champions for and voices for supporting those larger actions that are also part of the total equation that we need for wildfire resilience in our country.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, great. I want to pivot right before we get to audience questions where we're going to get to you next. Let's talk about public policy. So Jad, you worked on several pieces of legislation that became law in Washington. What's happening now? What's the latest policy work out there?

JAD DALEY: Well, here's the great news. We've had some massive wins on wildfire resilience in recent years. There was something called the Wildfire Funding Fix that was implemented about eight years ago, seven or eight years ago, which helped start to fix the Forest Service’s, in particular, budget issues, and give the Forest Service access for more money to do wildfire response and to combat wildfires as they're occurring.

And then in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, there was a huge, billions of dollars, of new funding, over $5 billion alone in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided to the Forest Service and the Department of Interior, in particular, to go out and do work on public lands, as well as to give grants to communities to do the kind of work that we've talked about, thinning forest, prescribed burning, active management in different ways to bring our forests into balance so that they're more wildfire resilient. So we're finally getting the scale of investment to where it needs to be on both fighting fires and those preventative actions. And then last, as I referred to with the REPLANT Act, also what we're doing after wildfire as well.

So we're really investing across that whole spectrum at a whole new scale, thanks to wins like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Now there was a question in the chat, well, what's going to happen now? With the new administration and the new Congress, is that kind of activity going to slow? And actually, I would suggest it will at least maintain the same pace, if not even increase.

The Trump administration in the first go around was very proactive about wanting to increase forest management to address the wildfire risk. And we've seen again and again in Congress, this is a bipartisan solution. Everyone is experiencing the damage from wildfire. Everyone's benefiting from the solutions. And so I think we're going to see even increased funding in the years ahead across that whole spectrum of before, during and after.

JOAN WOODWARD: Great, great. Michael, there's a question coming in from the audience here. What about the role of zoning enforcement and building codes? Where are we in terms of that?

MICHAEL KLEIN: Yeah, it's a great question, Joan. And I guess fortunately or unfortunately, zoning is local. And so you see great examples of communities in California as one example of trying to make the community more defensible. We talked about this as a concentric circle, and we talked about the house. We talked about the yard.

But the environment around the house and the yard is where, in most cases, the wildfire begins or where it gets most of its fuel. And so, communities working to manage the forest in their community, the communities working to pass zoning laws that restrict the proximity of construction of one home to another. Once a wildfire moves from the rural area into the urban area, the primary source of fuel are the structures. And so, space between structures becomes important.

And so, communities coming together, both to manage the forests in and around the structures, but also to manage the zoning and construction standards for the structures, can be an important part of the solution. And we've seen it. We've seen it work in hurricane.

We've got examples of, again, another program of IBHS called FORTIFIED, which is a set of construction standards for roofing, and attaching the roof and the structure to the foundation of a home, how much better those homes perform in the event of a hurricane than ones that aren't built to those standards. Construction standards and zoning laws can make a big difference.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. We're going to get to more questions here from the audience. But Michael, first, have you learned anything that really surprised you as part of this partnership and work on these forest issues?

MICHAEL KLEIN: Well, I mentioned it earlier. And again, I thought Jad said it well when he said, it's not just grabbing a bunch of trees and sticking them in the ground. Literally, before we started working with American Forests, that's mostly what I thought it was.

And what you find when you spend time with people like Jad, and you invest more time and energy in partnerships like this one, again, you find the science that they espouse. You see the rigor that they use when they execute. And Jad's, I think, done a great job of describing it.

But I would describe it as, this is not just about planting trees, and ecosystems, and forests for the sake of forests. This is-- the impact of these initiatives is so multifaceted. It's got economic impact. It's got socioeconomic impact, beyond environmental and climate impact. You get a lot of bang for your buck when you spend $1 on a tree.

JOAN WOODWARD: It's awesome. All right, Jad, question coming in from Gary Russell in Colorado. He wants to know, is there a wildfire risk zone map or zip code list available? Is there such things?

JAD DALEY: Absolutely. In fact, right now there are a number of them. And there's a great one that FEMA has done recently that's an online tool that I think is worth noting. And I might have even put that in response to a question earlier, but I can throw it in the chat if that's helpful.

But one of the things I think is exciting is you have government resources like that and other agencies at the federal and state level that have produced wildfire risk information that I think is high quality. But with AI, now what you have are private sector efforts as well that are being launched that are both doing a better job of managing risk in ways that can inform homeowners and insurers, for example, but also that can inform things like, where do we want to let fires burn, and where are we going to get, to your earlier question, Joan, where are we going to get that bad fire versus a good fire?

And so, AI has been a game changer in terms of giving us a way to look down at forests and parse those risks as well. So I think we're heading into a new era. And so, I think folks should watch that space in terms of different private sector tools that are being developed, and will be, in some cases, coming out over the next year or two that will complement some of these government tools, and together, I think, can really give everyone a clear picture of where our risks are greatest.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, thank you. Another question from Drew Gunn at Willis in Ohio, maybe, Michael, to you. Can satellite imagery be used to accurately identify wildfire exposure prior to a loss?

MICHAEL KLEIN: Yeah. I would call it aerial imagery, not satellite imagery. Because satellite imagery can be helpful. But we at Travelers use aerial imagery. Better resolution, and we can get very specific on the parcel, the structure, the surrounding area, the debris in the yard, the trees in the yard. And so, yes, aerial imagery can be a very valuable tool. And in fact, as agents of Travelers, when you submit a policy, we give you access to the aerial images for that submission so that you and we can both look at them and help the customer assess their exposure.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, great. Folks, the hour has flown by. I've learned so much. Please come back, Michael and Jad, and update us on the new technologies and the new initiatives coming in the next few years. So listen, thank you so much, Jad and Michael. I love this partnership. It's one of my favorite we have at Travelers, and we'll continue to do very good things together. So folks, anyway, thank you both.

MICHAEL KLEIN: Thanks for having us.

JOAN WOODWARD: All right.

JAD DALEY: Thank you so much. 

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Text: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Take Our Survey. Link in Chat. 

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JOAN WOODWARD: In the chat, we do have a survey. Please fill that out. Let us know what you thought of today's program and what other webinars you want to see.

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I want to share that we're going to be back in January, but we have a podcast. So, in case you're looking for something while you're traveling, the Travelers Institute Risk & Resilience Podcast, you can get on Apple or Spotify. 

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Text: Upcoming Webinars: Register: travelersinstitute.org. Jan. 15: U.S. Economic Outlook with Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Dr. Mark Zandi. Jan. 22: Find Your Calm: Stress-Reducing Practices for Busy Professionals. Feb. 5: The Geopolitical Landscape: Key Challenges for the New Administration. 

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So we're going to talk about January programming now. 

On January 15th, I'm going to welcome Moody's Chief Economist, Dr. Mark Zandi. He's a familiar face out there in the economics world. He'll share his forecast with us for the economy on January 15th.

Then, on the 22nd, we're going to slow it down a little bit. We're going to talk about meditation and yoga, and best practices with Rebecca Pacheo. She joins us. She has coached Olympic athletes. She has coached C-suite executives about how to be more intentional about your well-being.

Then, on February 5th, I'm going to be joined by a geopolitical expert, Dr. Michael Mazarr, for a look at what's going on around the world, and how it's going to affect your business. So tune in there. And last but not least, we have live, in-person programming.

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Text: Join us live in 2025. In-Person Events: Jan. 14: Phoenix, AZ, Navigating the Economy, Public Policy and Worker Mental Health. Feb. 10: Boise, ID, Small Business, Big Opportunity. Feb. 11: Spokane, WA, Cyber: Prepare, Prevent, Mitigate, Restore. Register: travelersinstitute.org.

So if you want to see us live, folks, check it out. We're going to be in Phoenix. We're going to be in Boise or Spokane in the first quarter. Come have lunch with us. And we're going to talk about lots of different things affecting your business. 

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Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Watch: travelersinstitute.org. Logo: LinkedIn. Text: Connect: Joan Kois Woodward. Listen, Wherever you get your pods. 

(SPEECH)
So, my friends, have a wonderful and safe holiday season with your family and friends. And thank you so much for joining us on these programs. It really is energizing for us at Travelers to have such great engagement with our agent and broker partners and our employees. Thanks, all. Happy holidays. 

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