| Quick Answer:
BC spent $510 million on wildfire suppression in 2025 and $621 million in 2024, with 2023 topping $1 billion — and those figures cover only direct firefighting costs. Research on Canadian wildfires found that total costs run 1.5 to 20 times the suppression figure once property losses, health impacts, and business disruption are included, and most of that falls on property owners and businesses, not government accounts. Every dollar invested in fuel treatment, prescribed burning, and structure hardening prevents multiples of that dollar in losses. The financial case for prevention has never been clearer. |
The question of what wildfires cost sounds simple. The answer is not.
What gets reported after a major fire season is the suppression figure: the helicopters, the crews, the retardant drops. In BC, that number reached $510 million in 2025, $621 million in 2024, and over $1 billion in 2023, the province’s worst wildfire season on record.
Total direct and indirect wildfire costs ranged from 1.5 to 20 times the cost of suppression alone, Most of that difference does not appear on any government ledger. It lands on property owners, businesses, and communities.
For anyone who owns a home or operates a business in BC’s wildland-urban interface, the Okanagan, the Cariboo, or the Interior, this article is about understanding what wildfire risk actually costs you and what you can do about it before a fire arrives.
The Full Scale of What Wildfires Cost
Suppression costs track what it takes to fight a fire. They do not track what the fire itself costs the people in its path.
Canada’s most costly wildfire events on record illustrate the gap. The 2016 Fort McMurray fire caused an estimated $3.58 billion in insured losses — the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history at the time. The 2024 Jasper fire ranked second at $1.3 billion in insured losses. BC’s own 2023 Okanagan and Shuswap fires caused over $720 million in insured losses, making them the most costly insured extreme weather event in BC history. Those are insured losses only. Uninsured losses, indirect costs, and long-term economic disruption are on top of that.
Statistics Canada found that during the 2023 season, businesses affected by the Kelowna fires represented 1.8 percent of the Thompson-Okanagan region’s entire GDP, and that in Jasper in 2024, over half of all working days in a month were lost. Health costs add further to the burden — during the 2023 season, Ontario alone incurred an estimated $1.2 billion in health costs in a single week from wildfire smoke, according to the Canadian Climate Institute. None of that appears in any suppression budget, but it falls directly on individuals and communities.
What the Research Shows About Wildfire Prevention
The economic case for prevention is supported by research that consistently reaches the same conclusion.
Widespread fuel treatments, cultural burns, and strategic forest thinning are the only approach predicted to make total fire costs eventually flatten and decrease. Both the BC and federal governments have invested in this direction: BC’s Crown Land Wildfire Risk Reduction program completed nearly 200 projects in 2024/25, and the federal Wildfire Resilient Futures Initiative committed up to $285 million over five years to wildland fire prevention and mitigation.
Natural Resources Canada notes that in addition to direct suppression costs, indirect costs such as property loss, business disruption, and rebuilding infrastructure average around $500 million per year nationally — and can be significantly higher in severe seasons. Those costs fall on property owners, businesses, and communities, not on suppression budgets. West Kelowna Fire Chief Jason Brolund put the imbalance plainly after the 2023 McDougall Creek fire: “Over $20 million was spent reacting to my fire, not to mention the insurance losses, which could be triple that. What could we have accomplished if we used that same amount of money proactively?”
Prevention tools include prescribed burning, mechanical thinning, defensible space, and structure hardening at the property level. None of them eliminate wildfire. All of them reduce severity, reduce losses, and reduce the long-term cost of both suppression and recovery.
What This Means for BC Property Owners and Businesses
Understanding the economics of wildfire is useful context. Knowing what to do with that information is more useful.
The costs that fall on you are not the costs that get counted. Government suppression figures capture what it costs to fight fires. Property losses, insurance premium increases, business interruption, smoke-related health costs, and years of recovery fall on individuals and businesses. Research on Canadian wildfires found those indirect costs run 1.5 to 20 times the suppression figure, and they are largely invisible in public accounts.
Property-level mitigation changes your risk profile today. Landscape-scale prevention requires coordinated action across government, industry, and land managers. What you can control right now is your own property. A wildfire risk assessment is the right starting point, followed by FireSmart-compliant defensible space, fire-resistant roofing and vents, and ember-resistant construction. Zone Zero mitigation within five metres of your structure is the highest-leverage single measure available, and it is increasingly recognized by insurers in high-risk zones.
Active structure protection fills the gap that suppression cannot. Fire crews cannot guarantee they will reach every property when multiple large fires are burning simultaneously. During BC’s 2023 season, firefighting costs surpassed $1 billion while resources were stretched across dozens of simultaneous fronts. Sprinkler trailers and deployable wildfire protection systems allow property owners and communities to establish an active water-based perimeter defense that does not depend on suppression response times. A structural fire protection unit puts water on your property on your timeline, not when resources become available elsewhere.
Document every mitigation investment. BC’s FireSmart program and insurers operating in high-risk zones are increasingly recognizing documented mitigation in underwriting decisions. Every improvement to your property’s fire resilience is worth recording and submitting to your insurer. For businesses, it is also worth including in operational risk disclosures.
The financial case for prevention, at every scale from your property line to the landscape around it, has never been stronger. The cost of wildfire, fully accounted for, makes waiting for suppression the expensive option.
Beyond structural damage, wildfire costs property owners through insurance premium increases, business interruption, evacuation expenses, temporary accommodation, lost income, and long-term property value impacts. Health costs from smoke exposure are also significant. Research on Canadian wildfires found that total costs run 1.5 to 20 times the direct suppression figure when all indirect costs are included, and most of those costs fall on individuals and communities rather than government accounts.
Yes, consistently. Natural Resources Canada notes that in addition to direct suppression costs, indirect costs from wildfires such as property loss, business disruption, and rebuilding infrastructure average around $500 million per year nationally on top of suppression — and run significantly higher in severe seasons. Those costs fall on property owners and businesses, not on suppression budgets. Prevention tools including prescribed burning, mechanical thinning, and structure hardening reduce the severity of fires before they start, avoiding a significant portion of both suppression and recovery costs.
Wildfire risk is increasingly priced into insurance premiums across BC’s wildland-urban interface. When forest fuel loads are high and community mitigation is limited, insurers reprice or exit markets. Documented property-level mitigation, including FireSmart assessments, defensible space maintenance, and fire-resistant construction, can support coverage negotiations and in some cases reduce premiums directly.
The highest-impact steps are maintaining FireSmart-compliant defensible space around your structure, using fire-resistant roofing materials and ember-resistant vents, and having a deployable structure protection system available for your property or community. A professional wildfire risk assessment is the best starting point for understanding where your property is most vulnerable. Documenting all mitigation investments and submitting them to your insurer can also support coverage negotiations in high-risk zones.
The wildland-urban interface is where developed land meets forest or wildland. It is where most BC property losses from wildfire occur, because fire moving through accumulated forest fuel reaches structures before suppression resources can always respond effectively. Properties in the interface face the highest insurance risk, the highest potential for loss, and the highest return on prevention investment.
