First Nations communities in Canada account for approximately 42% of wildfire evacuations despite representing around 5% of the country's population, according to government data confirmed by Indigenous Services Canada. In 2025 alone, 44,920 people from 61 on-reserve First Nations were displaced from their homes due to wildfire. It is against that backdrop that Aviva Canada has committed $300,000 to a structural fire-hardening pilot program targeting First Nations communities in British Columbia - a decision driven not only by social responsibility but by a 1,900% increase in wildfire-related claims from the insurer's own customer base compared with the previous five-year period.
The funding goes to the First Nations' Emergency Services Society of British Columbia to launch a fire-hardening pilot beginning with the Ashcroft Indian Band. The initiative targets communities that have completed FireSmart assessments but require support to implement the mitigation measures identified. Residential properties will be prioritised during the pilot phase, with critical infrastructure included if funding permits. FNESS also plans to incorporate Wildfire Mitigation Specialist training into the program and engage local and Indigenous businesses and contractors in delivering the work.
The pilot's technical rationale is specific: ember ignition is responsible for up to 90% of wildfire-related structural losses. Embers carried ahead of a fire front can travel significant distances and lodge in gaps, vents and combustible materials on buildings that would otherwise survive a passing fire. Fire hardening addresses this directly - removing combustible vegetation from building perimeters, sealing gaps, screening vents and making targeted modifications to limit ember entry and accumulation. Communities that have completed FireSmart assessments know where their vulnerabilities are; the Aviva funding is intended to bridge the gap between assessment and action.
Malina Garner, mitigation manager at FNESS, said the investment represents meaningful pre-event support. "In the true spirit of reconciliation, Aviva Canada has taken a step to support First Nations communities in preparing ahead of time for the challenges of a wildfire event," she said.
Urs Uhlmann, managing director of global corporate and specialty at Aviva Canada, said the impact of wildfires is not shared equally. "We know that as wildfires become more frequent and severe, the impact of those events is not felt equally. Through this work with FNESS, we're able to support practical, community-led solutions that build resilience in ways that respect and reflect Indigenous leadership, knowledge and priorities," he said.
The Aviva initiative is taking place against a Canadian wildfire loss environment that has deteriorated sharply. In 2024, for the first time in Canadian history, insured damage caused by severe weather events surpassed $8 billion, according to CatIQ - nearly triple the total recorded in 2023 and 12 times the annual average of $701 million in the decade between 2001 and 2010. Insured losses from the Jasper wildfire alone reached $1.3 billion, making it the second-costliest fire event in Canadian history behind the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires.
The FNESS pilot fits within Aviva's broader Canadian wildfire strategy. In 2024, the insurer partnered with Wildfire Defense Systems to provide wildfire monitoring and property protection services for eligible homeowners in Alberta and British Columbia when fire threats emerge. Aviva has also announced two pilot projects in Alberta designed to test and scale climate-resilient building practices. The FNESS investment extends that strategy specifically into First Nations communities, where the gap between wildfire exposure and mitigation resource is among the widest in the country.
Canada's Auditor General pointed, in 2025, to consistent failures in emergency management by Indigenous Services Canada despite a dramatic increase in funding over the last decade, and found that evacuation services standards have only been met in one province. Private sector mitigation investment of the kind Aviva is piloting addresses a different part of the problem - pre-event structural resilience rather than evacuation response - but it operates in the same gap between documented need and government delivery
