Season 2, Episode 4’s guest-star is Cheri Martinen, a wildfire insurance agent & author of, Covered: The Smart Buyer’s Guide To Home, Auto & Business Insurance.
Radiating an infectiously engaging aura, Cheri is able to explain some of the ins-and-outs of wildfire insurance by directly associating its relevancy to realistic ongoings of wildfire mitigation operations. From common tech to contractors, she covers it all.
TLDR: Fighting The Fire Of Burning Curiosity
Wildfire rates are rising along with tensions when fires prove difficult to put out. With those factors comes a need for more people to know what, exactly, is being employed to fight them.
Cheri begins the episode by talking about the privatization of wildland firefighting and how businesses needed for fire suppression- i.e. support providers & firefighter employers alike- obtain federal contracts.
Afterwards, the conversation turns towards the many possible causes of wildfires, from freak accidents to intentional arson. Then, Cheri & Douglas discuss the different technologies that are being used for fire mitigation presently and also how she “inherited” her career in insurance; plus, she describes the efforts she’s taken to make insurance easier to understand for the layperson.
Federal Deficiency: The Privatized Side Of Wildland Fires
Cheri begins the episode by describing why her job as a wildfire insurance agent- who handles both contractable companies & support-based distributors- exists. According to Cheri, the federal government doesn’t keep enough wildland firefighters on the pay roll to take care of wildfire breakouts themselves, so there are privately contracted companies who handle the employing & distribution of aid.
Despite the higher-risk of insuring those who have such dangerous jobs, Cheri states that it’s necessary to insure wildfire-mitigation companies so they can be hired by the federal government. However, because of the high-risk, there is a special set of criteria that these companies are covered under. Hence, the existence of wildfire insurance programs. These coverage packages typically include workers comp, commercial auto- i.e. trucks that are consistently navigating rough terrain-, liability, & pollution- to cover use of fire retardants that may harm the local environment.
Intruder Alert: A Well-Intended Invasion
Cheri & Douglas have a sidebar about invasive species that may unintendedly be brought from state-to-state, or just place-to-place, through the fighting of large-scale fires. For example, a helicopter carrying a water bucket needs to fill it in a large body of water. However, taking water from one isolated area to another runs a risk of picking up invasive species from that water source and dumping them into a new area.
Cheri also mentions the importance of having staff to consistently pressure spray trucks that are traversing through a diverse range of woodland areas. If a wildfire has multiple lines at significant distances that they’re being combated at, it’s easy for a truck to pick up flora, or fauna, from one area & unintendedly transplant them in another.
A Boiling Point: What’s Raising The Heat?
Cheri confirms that, according to the National Wildfire Suppression Association conference she attends annually, there has been a rise in the rate of wildfire occurrences. Their numbers are based on the amount they have to spend on crews & support each season, the acreage burned, & the number of “starts” there are. Cheri says that for 2026, there’s been a steep incline in fires. Most of which were ignited by drought & lightning. Cheri also notes that in years experiencing unusual lulls in fires, some wildland firefighters make the decision to start one themselves so they can be deployed for payment.
The once startling amount of wildfires in the western United States around the month of August have become so common that she- and others- refer to the smoky curtain caused by them as, “smoke season.”
Urban Interface: Gilded On Top, Burning Underneath
As someone who lives in the area, Cheri also personally attests to the rising instances of fires. She notes that in Oregon, many towns were built off of small hunting cabins in the 50s & 60s- more equivalent to shacks by today’s standards- that became permanent homes for individuals & families. Thus, they expanded in both size & number, and the urban sprawl into the woods intensified. This created a raise in risk factors that can cause fires concentrated in an area that is known for being quick to alight.
For example, people lighting bonfires for recreation, tossing cigarettes in unsavory places, dragging tow-chains on the pavement & creating sparks that find their way to dry foliage, and many more unusual & seemingly unlikely ways. The plethora of ways that fires can be started in the west have caused there to be unique, season-dependent restrictions on certain woodland activities.
Bot On The Ground, Eye In The Sky: Tech For The Fiery Depths
The discussion turns towards the coverage given for the latest technology that is being utilized for mitigating wildfires. There are mulching tools that can help chop up underbrush & others that can eat-down small circumference trees. This, Cheri explains, is to mediate the amount of fuel that a fire has access to before it travels to an area. To control the fuel, is to have a better grasp on the fire. Most of the drone-based technology used for wildland firefighting is to help clear out the ground and keep wild debris & excess trees from cluttering the area.
However, despite the majority of equipment being ground-based, there are also flying drones being utilized. These offer a way to see fire spreads in areas that people simply cannot traverse due to safety concerns. Another interesting way that aerial drones are used is by grouping many together into a hot spot area and using the wind from their propellers to suppress small breakout fires.
Continuation Or Beginning: Finding A Career In Insurance
When asked how she found her start in insurance, Cheri makes a cheeky, but in good-faith, comment that many agents say: “you’re either born into it, you marry into it, or you made a mistake.” She’s a fourth generation insurance agent with an established generational line of insurance business owners. Cheri personally just expanded her business to partner with OneDigital to help insure wildland firefighters on the east coast, instead of only on the west coast.
She also takes a minute to talk about the many ways that someone could get involved with helping mitigate wildfires from operating a heavy clearing equipment business, to pressure spraying the trucks for area-to-area travel. All very important jobs that, with the right qualifications, are able to be acquired by public contracts through the federal government.
An Expansion Of Business: An Expansion Of Knowledge
Douglas & Cheri circle around to discuss Cheri’s book, Covered: The Smart Buyer’s Guide to Home, Auto, and Business Insurance. She wrote this book to fill a niche information gap in the layperson’s insurance-based knowledge, built on the foundation of the most frequently asked questions she receives while working. Understanding that there isn’t much opportunity for those outside of the field of insurance to learn about insurance at all, the inspiration for Covered was born.
She knows that “insurance” is usually connotated with “boring”. So, to make learning about it interesting, she took engaging stories and made a very easy-to-understand guide for audiences ranging from those new to insurance to those who have been purchasing insurance for years.
To find out more about Cheri’s work, she can be found at: cherimartinen.com
She is also searchable by her name on Instagram, Facebook, & LinkedIn.
Her email for inquiry purposes is: cheri.martinen@onedigital.com
Lastly- but certainly not least- Cheri’s book, Covered: The Smart Buyer’s Guide to Home, Auto, and Business Insurance, is available through Amazon at this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX2VZG1X?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
And is intended to be available on her website as well!
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