British Columbia officials have released the first official damage count for the Bald Range wildfire, with approximately 150 structures damaged or destroyed, according to the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen.
About 110 of those are in Electoral Area F, including Faulder and Meadow Valley, and roughly 40 are within the District of Summerland itself. Officials stressed the number is preliminary and will likely rise as assessments continue.
The count comes as most of Summerland has now returned home, roughly 90% of the town, according to district officials, with evacuation orders lifted for 3,380 properties on top of 1,200 that came back over the preceding weekend. About 530 properties remain under evacuation order in the hardest-hit valleys, where crews are still clearing dangerous trees, removing debris and restoring power. The fire itself remains out of control at 21,391 hectares, 11 days after it ignited.
For the returning majority of evacuees, and the roughly 150 households and businesses now confirmed to have suffered real damage, the practical question shifts from "when can I go home" to "how do I file a claim correctly."
Grant Alsop, an account executive with Axis Insurance, told CityNews the most important step is starting that process immediately. "Do it as soon as possible... and that typically gets you assigned with an insurance adjuster," Alsop said.
Insurance Bureau of Canada has reiterated that residents don't need to have seen damage first; a claim can be opened while a property is still under evacuation order, which matters given how many Bald Range properties spent over a week inaccessible.
Alsop's guidance on documentation is worth passing directly to affected clients: "The ideal situation would be one where you've got really good records of what you've got for contents, pictures, receipts, video, any sort of list you can have that justifies the amount of the loss."
The province is advising residents to photograph and record damage before any cleanup begins, keep damaged items unless they pose a health hazard, and contact their insurer before making major repairs or discarding anything.
This is consistent with the documentation gap this event exposed early on, when Faulder residents were confirming losses through informal photos and video well before any official count existed. That informal evidence is now exactly what claims adjusters will be working from as formal assessments catch up to what residents already know.
Alsop was direct that the scale of this event will slow the claims process even for policyholders who file immediately.
"You can expect that there are probably going to be delays," he said, citing both claims volume and continued access restrictions in some areas.
What should move faster is additional living expense support: standard home and tenant policies generally cover ALE once a government evacuation order forces someone from their home, and Alsop said insurers typically begin forwarding those funds "fairly quickly" once contact is established, well ahead of a full contents or structural settlement.
Alsop also flagged a broader shift worth raising with clients beyond this specific claim.
BC's increasingly frequent wildfires are already pushing premiums higher in areas without full fire protection, and repeated losses in the same regions could eventually push insurers toward requiring non-combustible construction materials in the highest-risk zones rather than simply pricing wood-frame homes higher.
He recommended clients consider shifting policy renewals to winter where possible, since some insurers pull back from writing new business during active wildfire season even while continuing to renew existing policies, meaning clients renewing outside fire season currently have more competitive options than those renewing mid-summer.
