With fires spreading through B.C.'s Fraser Canyon and residents evacuating on short notice, restoration firms are treating the fast-moving start to the season as an indicator of what other Canadian communities could face, according to Andrew Platt, Regional Operations Manager for B.C. at First Onsite.
"We're keeping a close eye on the Boston Bar, Fraser Canyon fires at the moment, with people having evacuated on short notice and how quickly that's been spreading due to dry conditions," Platt said. "We've had a very dry spring and early summer here, and those conditions are really allowing fires to spread uncontrollably when wind picks up."
The company is using those fires as one example of many, he said, to make sure it is ready to respond with the correct amount of resources and a high sense of urgency, so it can help restore and rebuild the lives of people affected by these events.
The dryness driving them is a West Coast story specifically. The Prairies, by contrast, have seen significant rainfall this year, Platt noted, calling the contrast interesting. But the pattern of fast-moving fires is not confined to one region. Ontario is now seeing fires as well, he said, with a similar dynamic of rapid spread and the need for quick-turnaround evacuation notices and alerts.
"It really speaks to how important it is that people are staying informed, really making sure that they're following their local wildfire services or local community bulletins," Platt said. "Because things are unfolding quickly."
What the industry asks of restoration companies has shifted alongside the risk, he said. The expectation now is the ability to respond with significant resources and urgency, get into affected communities quickly, and begin mitigation and cleanup as soon as possible – getting businesses running and homeowners back into their homes, even if not immediately back to normal living, at least cleaned up so they can return to normal life sooner than later.
"These projects can be pretty dynamic and do vary by event, but having the available resources and expertise is hugely important," Platt said. "That's where we're really focused right now – making sure that that's all ready to go at a moment's notice in every community across the country."
The work itself has grown more complex, he said, but the industry has recognized this as its new normal – the new landscape of events. Policies are changing somewhat in how they are written and delivered to customers, businesses and homes, and in his assessment the industry has done a good job of adapting and adjusting its processes. Responding properly increasingly means bringing in specialized professionals – hygienists, for example, to assess homes affected not by flame but by heavy smoke.
"Maybe they haven't been affected by the fire itself, but they've been affected by heavy smoke, and that can be very complex," Platt said. "That's where I see a lot of insurance companies and restoration contractors coming together, working together on what's really unfolding in near real time."
Asked where the biggest gap sits between how homes are built and how prepared they are for wildfire, Platt pointed to aging infrastructure – older homes and buildings, and the open question of how they stand up to climate change and large events. Insurers, he said, still need to figure out how they cover that aging stock, and he described the conversation around it as quite dynamic.
Asked what he meant by dynamic – whether it was a place restoration firms could provide insights, or one where interests pull against each other – Platt said it does pull in a few directions. The question underneath it, in his framing, is how insurance evolves when large-scale events are happening quicker than ever: how carriers deliver policies that keep people protected and feeling comfortable, while at the same time absorbing real-time data and feedback from the contractors on the ground.
That is where restoration firms have taken on a second role, he said – as a data source feeding back what each season and each event reveals.
"I think we're doing a really good job of providing that data to insurance companies and brokers so they understand how things are shifting year to year, or event to event," Platt said, "and allowing them to then go back internally and look at – are we delivering the right kind of insurance for our customers?"
