Building Potential – Wildfires: Episode 3

Join us for a discussion with FortressFire's John Wall and Michael O'Dell.

In Episode 3 of the Building Potential – Wildfires Special, John Wall, the Founder and CTO at FortressFire, and Michael O'Dell, the Head of Data Science and Machine Learning at FortressFire, join Archipelago’s Founder & Chairman, Hemant Shah, to discuss:

Modeling for mitigation – How FortressFire’s structure-first approach focuses on protecting properties by modeling how and why buildings ignite—not just predicting wildfire spread.
Turning risk reduction into reality – Why modeling isn’t the endpoint, but the starting point for real-world action, from ground-level mitigations to long-term monitoring.
Community-scale resilience – How a new mindset around cluster mitigation could reshape insurance strategies and build collective wildfire protection.

John Wall

Founder and Chief Technology Officer at FortressFire

Michael O'Dell

Head of Data Science and Machine Learning at FortressFire

Patrick Gallagher & Mike McNulty from EPIC Brokers

In Episode 2 of Building Potential – Wildfires Special, Hemant, Patrick, and Mike take a broker’s-eye view on the impact of recent wildfires, the growing role of community-wide mitigation, and why better modeling is key to unlocking scalable insurance solutions.

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Alexandra Glickman, Senior MD of Gallagher's Real Estate & Hospitality Practice

In Episode 5 of Building Potential, Hemant and Alexandra discuss the stabilization of rates and capacity in the market, the critical role of enhanced data in underwriting efficiency, and the importance of implementing diversity initiatives to develop innovative insurance solutions.

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