Canada’s first wildfire Cat of 2024? Fort Nelson, B.C., on the brink

Fort Nelson, B.C., is about 1.5 km away from becoming the first major natural catastrophe of Canada’s 2024 wildfire season.

The town’s mayor noted wind conditions are putting the community in peril, and evacuation orders have been given to approximately 4,700 people who live in Fort Nelson and Fort Nelson First Nation. Fort Nelson is located in northeastern B.C., about a 10-hour drive from Prince George.

Sparked when high winds blew down a power line, the Parker Lake wildfire grew to nearly 53 square kilometres as of Sunday evening, CBC reported today. The situation is fluid and local officials say the winds are likely to push the fire closer to the town throughout the day.

Glenn McGillivray, managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), told Canadian Underwriter strong winds, dry conditions and holdover wildfires are the chief culprits behind the current risk.

“The wildfire season is beginning to play out in B.C., Alberta, Yukon, etc. just as forecasters thought it would,” McGillivray said. “First of all, these places are into their fourth year of drought. It is very, very dry out West right now.

“Secondly, there are a large number of holdover fires — also known as ‘zombie’ fires — from last season that went underground over the winter and have re-emerged.

“In the case of this fire, along with drought and presence of fuel, winds are currently gusting pretty high and in the wrong direction, pushing the fire toward Fort Nelson. The winds are key here. You can have drought and lots of fuel, but without the wind, you won’t get a wildfire disaster…

“If embers enter town, it will burn.”

McGillivray estimated about 60,000-plus communities across Canada are located in places of significant wildfire risk.

Several industry sources told CU this is about the time of year that wildfire risk becomes a reality. Alberta declared wildfire season officially started as early as February 20 this year, as the Insurance Bureau of Canada observed.

In 2011, the Slave Lake fire in Alberta happened in mid-May, costing the Canadian P&C insurance industry about $500 million in claims payouts. The May 1, 2016, wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta., remains Canada’s most costly catastrophic event, at about $4 billion in insured damages. And Lytton, B.C., was 90% destroyed by fire in June 2021, costing about $100 million in insured damage, although McGillivray said about 50% of people in the community did not have insurance coverage.

“This isn’t the first time B.C. has seen concerning wildfires this early in Spring,” Rosy Puri-Manhas, vice-president of the Insurance Brokers Association of B.C., told CU in an email Monday. “April 2021 comes to mind, when a wildfire burning in the southern interior prompted the Thompson-Nicola Regional District to issue an alert for Canford and for homes northwest of Merritt.

“In 2022, B.C. moved to funding year-round wildfire service, effectively indicating that B.C. no longer has a wildfire ‘season,’ and instead wildfire is a year-round concern.”

Seeing another significant threat to a community this early in spring is “troubling,” Puri-Manhas added, “but given the impact of climate change and the dryer winter the province has had, it’s not surprising.

“With increasing incidents, and increasing size of wildfires, along with the growing communities in wildfire-prone areas, our focus is on helping residents know what steps to take to mitigate their risk, what to do if they need to evacuate, and how to recover quickly if they are affected.”

Of particular concern to insurers is the narrow access to and from the Fort Nelson community.

“There is only one road to this community, making an evacuation a bit more difficult,” IBC told CU Monday. “The nearest main community is Fort St. John, about 400 km south, to where many of the residents have evacuated.”

CBC reported Monday morning that fewer than 100 households had still not evacuated the Fort Nelson area as of Monday morning, including a hotel that was housing fire services personnel.

PHOTO CREDIT: The Donnie Creek wildfire burns in an area between Fort Nelson and Fort St. John, B.C., in this 2023 handout photo provided by the BC Wildfire Service. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-BC Wildfire Service