Fire and Insurance in the WUI

John Vaillant, whose latest book is Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, in an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail, comments that we can’t call these supercharged wildfire seasons our ‘new normal.’ There’s nothing natural about how we changed the Earth’s climate.

Fort McMurray homes lie in ruins on May 13, 2016, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a tour of the damage. A year later, MacEwan University researchers estimated the overall cost of the disaster at more than $8.86-billion.

JASON FRANSON/REUTERS

In Canada, and elsewhere, wildfires have traditionally been viewed as a rural problem. But as we’ve seen in recent years in Australia, the United States, Canada – and many other places – cities and towns are increasingly under threat. The area of greatest concern to Canadians is the wildland urban interface – a.k.a. the WUI (rhymes with “phooey”). The WUI is where the forest meets the built environment, i.e., those tree-lined subdivisions where so many new Canadian homes are being built. It’s a beautiful place to live, until it’s on fire. The bad news is: Whether you live in the suburbs of Victoria, Saskatoon or Calgary, your neighbourhood is more flammable than it used to be. (Vaillant & Franceschet, n.d.)

Catherine Boudreau and Dan Latu investigate, for the Business Insider, how rising insurance premiums are reshaping where people live as the climate crisis intensifies.

Nick's dilemma illustrates how the climate crisis is touching even the most mundane aspects of owning a home. More frequent and destructive wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding are pushing up the price of property insurance in high-risk states such as California and Florida; some companies are pulling out of these markets altogether. Surging policy costs and coverage deserts in already pricey markets mean insurers could become gatekeepers determining where people find it possible to live. (Latu, 2023)

When hundreds of homes in the wildland urban interface are destroyed by fire, the rising cost of insurance, if it is available, makes rebuilding in a similar WUI environment prohibitively expensive. 

References

Latu, D. (2023, July 2). Insurers May Shape Where People Live; Some People Could Be Left Out. Business Insider. Retrieved July 3, 2023, from https://www.businessinsider.com/how-insurers-will-shape-where-people-live-climate-change-2023-7 

Vaillant, J., & Franceschet, S. (n.d.). Opinion: No wonder Alberta is on fire. We made this planet into a volcano. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved July 3, 2023, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-no-wonder-alberta-is-on-fire-we-made-this-planet-into-a-volcano/?utm_medium=Referrer:+Social+Network+/+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links