Alberta Wildfires – July report

According to a report from the Insurance Bureau of Canada, insurance losses from the Fort McMurray Wildfires in Northern Alberta are now expected to total C$3.58bn /US$2.76bn), making it the costliest insured natural disaster in Canadian history.

Insured losses from the Alberta Wildfires, which were first spotted on May 1st and which burned for nearly two months, have surpassed those from Canada's previous most expensive wildfires, Slave Lake in 2011, which caused more than C$700 million in insured losses. They are now Canada's most expensive natural disaster, having eclipsed the 1998 ice storm that struck Southern Quebec (approx. C$1.9bn/US$1.5bn in insured claims) and the 2013 floods in Southern Alberta (approx. C$1.8bn /US$1.4bn in insured claims).