How much B.C.’s catastrophic wildfires will cost insurers

B.C.’s summer wildfires clocked in as the costliest insured event ever recorded in the province, and the tenth costliest insured event in Canada’s history, Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) said. 

Wildfires in the Okanagan and Shuswap regions of B.C. will cost insurers over $720 million in insured damages, according to initial estimates from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ). 

“This year’s wildfire season has broken all records in terms of the amount of land burned and damage caused to homes and businesses in B.C.,” Aaron Sutherland, IBC’s vice president, Pacific and Western, said in a release.  

“The wildfires’ impact is another tragic reminder of the risk BC residents face due to climate change and the increasing frequency of natural catastrophes.” 

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Nearly $240 million of the damage is attributed to the Bush Creek East wildfire that ravaged the Shuswap area from mid-July to Sept. 25.  

The fire, which burned in relatively unpopulated areas in July, travelled quickly through the north Shuswap communities of Scotch Creek and Celista by mid-August, which is when most of the damage occurred.

Because the fire made its way rapidly through the region, about 3,500 properties were under evacuation orders. 

More than 270 structures are confirmed to have been destroyed north of Shuswap Lake. 

The Bush Creek East wildfire caused extensive damage to public infrastructure, including damage to hydro poles that resulted in power outages for thousands of customers. Private commercial infrastructure was destroyed as well.  

Meanwhile, over $480 million of the damage is attributed to the Okanagan region’s McDougall Creek wildfires. 

Starting in the Okanagan Valley in mid-August, the fires were stoked by hot, dry and windy conditions around McDougall Creek, Clark Creek and Walroy Lake.  

The three fires spread rapidly, and structural damage was reported in the West Kelowna, Kelowna and Lake Country regions where many properties were completely destroyed.  

Officials confirmed 70 homes were affected by the wildfires in West Kelowna, and 20 were destroyed in Westbank First Nation. Three homes and two outbuildings in Kelowna, and another three in Lake Country, were completely destroyed. 

Lake Okanagan suffered significant wildfire damage to nearly 200 properties after the fires ravaged the region for nearly a month. The Lake Okanagan Resort was also destroyed. 

Damages were originally compared to the region’s last major wildfire, which occurred in Kelowna nearly twenty years earlier. However, combined losses from the Bush Creek East and McDougall Creek wildfires sharply outpaced the 2003 wildfires in Kelowna, which cost $200 million in insured damages, IBC reported.  

It’s possible the damage to the Shuswap and Okanagan regions could’ve been worse, had firefighters not been aided by rains which tempered the fires in late-August.  

A gas station that was destroyed by the Bush Creek East wildfire is seen in Squilax, B.C., on Wednesday, September 6, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck