WINERY WILDFIRE RISK ASSESSMENT
Winery Wildfire Risk Assessments Across Napa, Solano & Contra Costa
Protect your production, your inventory, and your guests with a detailed on-site assessment and a written action plan for every building on your property.
$1M
Liability Insurance
4
Verified Certifications
3
Counties Served
WINERY WILDFIRE RISK ASSESSMENT
Winery Wildfire Risk Assessments For Facilities, Production And Hospitality
Winery wildfire risk assessments for operators across Napa Valley, from Calistoga tasting rooms to Stags Leap production facilities to Mount Veeder mountain estates, with additional coverage across Solano and Contra Costa wine regions. Whether you run a family operation with a single tasting room or a multi building estate with barrel storage, event spaces, and year round hospitality, a Red Lion winery wildfire risk assessment covers the specific ways wildfire threatens your facility, your inventory, and your guests.
Every assessment is delivered online in partnership with Fire Aside
What You Receive
A Visual & Fully Interactive Winery Wildfire Assessment Report You Can Act On
Every winery assessment is delivered as a digital report you can share with your owner, GM, operations team, and insurer in one click. Whether you’re preparing for an insurance renewal, a facility walkthrough, or a staff safety briefing, the report is ready to travel with you.
- Annotated facility maps of vegetation and buildings
- Full photo documentation with GPS tags
- Prioritized action items ranked by cost and fire risk impact
- Insurance ready documentation format
- One page action summary for quick reference
- Cal Fire Chapter 7A compliance notes where applicable
why choose red lion wildfire defense
Certified Winery Wildfire Risk Assessment Specialists
Wildfire defense is safety critical work, and winery operators deserve to know exactly who is walking their facility. Every Red Lion winery wildfire risk assessment is delivered by specialists with verifiable credentials in arboriculture, wildland fire, and community protection.
ISA Certified Arborist
Essential for evaluating trees around your winery, from oak canopy over tasting patios to specimen trees along entrance drives. Every winery wildfire risk assessment reflects real arboricultural expertise.
Certified Wildfire Mitigation Specialist
Verifies advanced knowledge in wildland fire science, home hardening, Home ignition zone, defensible space and community-wide planning within the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI).
Cal Fire Timber Ops
California state licensed for vegetation management. Authority to work across winery properties in State Responsibility Areas and Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones, including Napa Valley mountain AVAs.
Firefighter 2 Trained
Trained to interagency wildland fire standards. Trained to the same wildfire response standards as federal and state firefighters. We can read how fire will move across your property because we trained in exactly how it moves.
What’s At Stake
Six Ways Wildfire Threatens Winery Operations
Wildfire risk to a winery isn’t one threat. It’s six overlapping ones, and they don’t all show up in the same place.
Tasting Room And Hospitality Buildings
Wood shake roofs, unscreened vents, and combustible siding on tasting rooms and hospitality buildings are common ignition points. Guest-facing structures rarely get the hardening attention that production buildings receive.
Barrel Storage And Inventory
Barrel rooms concentrate millions of dollars of inventory in enclosed spaces with high fuel loading. Even without direct ignition, smoke intrusion during a fire event can compromise entire vintages worth of aging wine.
Production Facilities And Equipment
Crush pads, fermentation tanks, and bottling lines represent both structural risk and operational continuity risk. A single fire event during harvest can cost a full year of production.
Guest And Staff Evacuation
Wineries host guests who don’t know the property, drive rural roads without cell coverage, and often stay through wine service into late afternoon. Evacuation planning for guests is different from evacuation planning for staff.
Access For Fire Response
Narrow winery driveways, gated entrances, and hillside AVA access roads can slow or block engine response. Whether crews can reach your production buildings determines whether they defend the winery or retreat from it.
Insurance And Business Continuity
Winery insurance is complex, layering property, inventory, business interruption, and liquor liability coverage. Documented wildfire risk assessment supports renewal at every layer. Undocumented risk drives non-renewal across all of them.
Our Process
4 Steps From Operations Consultation To Interactive Report
01
Operations Consultation
A free 30 minute call with your owner, GM, or operations manager to understand your facility, current concerns, and mitigation goals.
02
Facility Walkthrough
A certified specialist walks your winery, from tasting room and hospitality buildings to production facilities and barrel storage. Typically 4 to 8 hours on site depending on operation size.
03
Online Report
You receive a fully online interactive report with facility maps, GPS tagged photos, and prioritized recommendations your team can act on immediately.
04
Ops Review Meeting
We walk your team through findings and help you sequence the work, whether it’s in-house maintenance, contractor engagement, or our crews.
faq
Common Questions From Winery Owners And Operations Managers
Can wildfire smoke damage wine even if the winery doesn't burn?
Wildfire smoke can compromise aging wine through volatile phenol absorption during barrel storage, even without direct fire contact. Smoke intrusion into barrel rooms during fire events has damaged full vintages at Napa and Sonoma wineries. A winery wildfire risk assessment identifies structural and ventilation vulnerabilities that increase smoke exposure risk.
Does a wildfire risk assessment help wineries with insurance renewals?
Documented winery wildfire risk assessments support renewal across the layered coverage wineries carry: property, inventory, business interruption, and liquor liability. California’s Sustainable Insurance Strategy requires insurers to factor documented mitigation into pricing. Wineries in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones increasingly need documented assessment to maintain coverage at any premium.
How long does a winery wildfire risk assessment take?
A winery wildfire risk assessment typically takes 4 to 8 hours on site for a single property walkthrough, plus 5 to 10 business days for report preparation and delivery. Multi-building estate wineries with separate hospitality, production, and barrel storage facilities may require a second site visit.
Who at a winery typically requests a wildfire risk assessment?
Winery wildfire risk assessments are typically requested by the owner, general manager, or operations manager. At estate wineries, the vineyard manager may also initiate the conversation. We provide a written scope and proposal after the free consultation call, so decision makers can approve a known scope.
Is a winery wildfire risk assessment different from a vineyard assessment?
Yes. Winery wildfire risk assessments cover buildings and operations: tasting rooms, production facilities, barrel storage, hospitality spaces, and staff evacuation planning. Vineyard assessments cover the growing operation: canopy fuel loads, hillside blocks, smoke taint exposure, and harvest evacuation. Estate operators with both often need both assessments, and we coordinate delivery to avoid duplication.
How much does a winery wildfire risk assessment cost?
Winery wildfire risk assessment pricing depends on facility size, number of buildings, hospitality operation complexity, and hillside access. Most winery assessments range from $4,500 to $18,000. We provide a fixed price quote after the free consultation call, so owners can approve a known number rather than an open estimate.
How does a winery assessment differ from a Cal Fire defensible space inspection?
Cal Fire defensible space inspections check individual structures for minimum compliance under Public Resources Code 4291. Winery wildfire risk assessments evaluate the full operation, including tasting room hardening, barrel storage smoke exposure, production continuity risk, hospitality guest evacuation, and access road capacity for engine response. Cal Fire inspections don’t cover any of this.
Does the assessment help wineries coordinate with Napa Communities Firewise Foundation?
Yes. Winery wildfire risk assessments provide the technical documentation needed to coordinate with Napa Communities Firewise Foundation, participate in Firewise USA site recognition through the National Fire Protection Association, and align with neighboring vineyard and residential mitigation efforts across the wine country.
Does the winery assessment include help implementing the recommendations?
Yes. Every winery wildfire risk assessment includes an operations review meeting to walk through findings and sequence next steps. Winery teams can hire Red Lion to project manage crews for defensible space, fuel reduction, and structural hardening work.
How do wineries plan wildfire evacuation for guests and event attendees?
Winery evacuation planning for guests is fundamentally different from staff evacuation. Guests don’t know the property, drive rural roads without cell coverage, and often stay through wine service into late afternoon. Winery wildfire risk assessments include guest evacuation protocols, event day fire watch procedures, and staff training frameworks for wildfire response during hospitality operations.
We Know Wineries
WE KNOW WINE COUNTRY
Wineries are not homes or vineyards. Tasting rooms carry structural risk that homes don’t face, barrel storage concentrates inventory value in ways homes never do, and hospitality operations create liability exposure that vineyards don’t carry. We assess the specific ways wildfire threatens winery buildings, not just what looks unmaintained from the driveway. We evaluate whether your operation can actually run through a fire season, not just whether the entrance is clear on a normal day. We check whether barrel rooms hold up against smoke intrusion and whether your production facility can be defended by responders under wind driven fire conditions. Generic wildfire assessments miss all of this. Ours is designed around it.
Schedule Consultation Call
Schedule Your Winery Wildfire Risk Assessment Consultation
Free 30 minute consultation call with your owner, GM, or operations manager. We will tell you honestly whether a full winery wildfire risk assessment fits your operation, and how much difference it will make.