First Jasper, next Banff. Why the town could be the next to burn

Banff, Canada - August 12, 2023: People walking along a street with shops and Restaurants. Some sitting around a campfire. In background majestic mountains. — iStock.com/no_limit_pictures

Banff wasn’t affected by forest fires that razed the Jasper townsite just a three-hour drive northwest last summer.

It may not be so lucky next time.

That’s the omen Glenn McGillivray, managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), delivered to brokers at the Insurance Brokers Association of Alberta Convention 2025 last week. The conference took place at the Fairmont Banff Springs.

“Last night, I took a walk down to the town site, and I walked around the grounds here. First thing I noticed were bark chips everywhere,” McGillivray said, “and all these conifer trees — it’s just fuel. Just gasoline.

“If you don’t think this place is going to go — this place hasn’t burned in over a century—it’s ready to rip,” he said. “As I drove in here yesterday in my rental car, at the side of the road I saw the Fire Smart designation. We’re at high risk right now. This place is ready. And if we haven’t learned from Jasper, I don’t know.”

And it’s not just the Banff townsite that’s at risk.

Despite years of public awareness campaigns and various incentives, homeowners and municipalities Canada-wide aren’t taking enough action to reduce their natural catastrophe risk, McGillivray said.

“If we haven’t learned from places like Jasper or Fort McMurray, I don’t know what it’s going to take,” he told the convention.

“The homework doesn’t work. Incentives don’t work. This stuff is not working. We’re not moving the dial,” McGillivray said. “In my opinion, I think regulation is kind of where we’re going to have to go.”

Delaying the inevitable

ICLR’s recently been working to motivate homeowners and municipalities to build resilience into their properties and communities, but it’s easier said than done.

“We’re trying to figure out things like, how do you get into the mind of the homeowner? How can you make it so that incentives do work?” he asked. “I get a few calls or emails every year from people who want to take action to make their home more resilient or their community more resilient — every single time, it’s a retired person a bunch of other retired people that have a community, or housing, or a vacation property association or something like that — and nobody else is interested.”

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Homeowners often don’t prioritize building resilience after natural disasters, he said, because they often don’t want to sacrifice outdoor ambiance for resilience efforts.

The same goes for municipalities. After the devastating Lytton, B.C., fire, one local bylaw proposed fire-resilient rebuilding — but it was repealed after a change in council. “Out goes the bylaw,” McGillivray said. “We’re putting our clients back with the same level of risk they had.”

The bullseye effect

Continuous urban expansion has made disasters more costly than ever before. Across Canada, where many communities are growing rapidly, natural disaster risk grows in tandem.

“We talk about the growing bullseye effect,” McGillivray said. “We didn’t change the storm. We only changed the underlying insured equity. The thing is, with climate change, we’re also changing the storm too…we’re changing both of those things.”

In fact, disaster losses in Canada are climbing at an alarming rate. “Disaster losses are growing by about 9% annually in Canada,” said McGillivray. “That’s three times GDP. It’s about 10 times the population growth.

“The major driver for loss right now is simply, there’s just more people and property at risk,” McGillivray said. “It’s not just climate change. It’s also more stuff to break.”

Atop urban expansion and climate change, rising property values and aging infrastructure lead to costlier, bigger disaster footprints.

The ‘little’ things

Guidance exists to guide homeowners and municipalities toward better resilience measures. But even with the right solutions, implementation remains patchy.

To guide builders and communities, ICLR introduced a “Good, Better, Best” resilience framework. For wildfire, the framework provides guidance on the most critical protection measures.

As McGillivray summarizes, “Install a Class A roof — it can be asphalt shingles, doesn’t have to be metal…Maintain that non-combustible zone immediately around the home. Keep flammable materials — woodpiles, propane tanks, conifer trees — away from the structure.”

A home’s visual appeal doesn’t have to be sacrificed. By combining smarter landscaping with fire-resistant materials like stucco or fibre cement, homeowners can protect their properties from embers — the primary cause of ignition — while maintaining curb appeal.

“We can have good-looking communities that are also very resilient to fire,” McGillivray said. “It’s what surrounds the home that matters — bark chips, conifers, even a broom leaning against a wall.”