As wildfires continue burning across British Columbia, experts are renewing calls to make FireSmart wildfire mitigation principles mandatory rather than voluntary, according to CBC News reporting this week. Mike Flannigan, a wildland fire professor at Thompson Rivers University, argued that in high-risk locations, FireSmart measures only work if applied consistently - because one unprotected neighbouring property can still spread embers that ignite a FireSmart-compliant home nearby.
The debate is not new, and neither is the funding uncertainty behind it. The province has provided more than $175 million for FireSmart in BC since 2018, but only about $25 million remained as of last February, with no confirmed commitment from the province on future funding beyond a general reference to wildfire mitigation in the Ministry of Forests' current service plan.
For brokers, the more consequential story underneath this debate is one the industry has been aware of for years: FireSmart certification exists, can be verified, and demonstrably reduces risk - but there is still no standardised way for that to translate into a lower premium in Canada.
In 2018, the Union of BC Municipalities formally asked IBC and governments to create incentive options tied to FireSmart certification. IBC's response at the time was that it cannot compel its member insurers to reduce premiums or offer specific incentives, since individual companies set their own underwriting criteria. That structural position has not changed.
Some individual insurers have moved independently. Co-operators offers a discount on the wildfire-peril portion of home insurance premiums for properties certified through FireSmart BC's Wildfire Mitigation Program or located in a FireSmart-recognised neighbourhood. BCAA has a similar arrangement. But these are insurer-specific agreements rather than an industry-wide standard.
A specific structural barrier compounds this: FireSmart BC does not share underlying property assessment details with the insurance industry generally. That limitation means any insurer that wanted to price mitigation work at the individual property level would still face a data gap, even if it had the commercial will to offer discounts. Without access to what the property-level assessment actually shows, insurers are effectively pricing on certification status alone - a coarser signal than the mitigation work being done would support.
This is closely related to the disconnect that Ward 5 Calgary councillor Raj Dhaliwal raised regarding hail-resistant roofing in Alberta earlier this month - pointing out that Alberta still lacks clarity on how a hail-resilient home translates into an actual premium reduction, despite growing builder adoption of Class 4 shingles. Whether the peril is hail or wildfire, the pattern is consistent across Canada: mitigation measures exist, insurers acknowledge they reduce risk, but the industry has not built a consistent, transparent framework connecting verified mitigation work to a predictable premium reduction. By contrast, California and Colorado have taken regulatory steps to create more transparency around how wildfire mitigation scores and insurance pricing interact - a more prescriptive approach that Canada has not adopted nationally.
The communities that have gone further than voluntary FireSmart guidance offer a useful but mixed record. Logan Lake became Canada's first FireSmart community after a 2003 wildfire threat and credited its mitigation work with protecting homes during a subsequent 2021 fire that came within metres of properties. Jasper, following its devastating 2024 wildfire, adopted new building standards prohibiting cedar shingle roofs and requiring non-combustible roofing and siding materials instead.
Lytton took a different path: after its 2021 wildfire, the village initially adopted bylaws requiring fireproofing measures, then rescinded them over concerns about cost and delays to rebuilding. That reversal is a useful caution for brokers advising municipal or developer clients on resilience requirements. Mandatory standards can meaningfully reduce future losses - as Logan Lake and Jasper suggest - but they can also be walked back under political pressure, particularly immediately after a disaster when residents and councils are focused on rebuilding quickly rather than rebuilding to a higher standard.
None of this changes coverage today. Standard homeowner policies still cover fire damage regardless of whether a property meets FireSmart standards, and evacuation-related coverage still triggers independent of mitigation status.
But as more provinces and municipalities weigh mandatory resilience requirements, and as individual insurers expand mitigation-linked discounts, FireSmart certification is likely to become a more common client question across the next few renewal cycles - similar to how Class 4 roofing in Alberta has moved from specialist knowledge to a standard broker conversation point. For now, the honest and accurate answer for clients in wildfire-exposed areas of BC, Alberta, or anywhere FireSmart programs operate is the same one Alberta brokers are giving on hail-resistant construction: confirm treatment carrier by carrier, since there is no industry-wide standard yet.
