Most of land burned was at high risk, report says

Analysis comes from firm that rates fire risk for insurance companies

Eighty-eight per cent of the land burned near Fort McMurray was at high or extreme risk from wildfire, according to a firm that analyzes risk for insurance companies.

New Jersey-based Verisk Insurance Solutions is expanding its FireLine wildfire risk management service to insurance companies in Alberta and British Columbia. FireLine uses satellite, weather and topography data to assess the impact of three primary contributors to wildfire risk: fuel, slope and road access. Fuel represents vegetation surrounding the property, slope is the grade of land on which the property is built and road access identifies potential barriers for firefighters.

“Our analysis of the recent Fort McMurray fire is an example of how Canadian insurers can benefit from FireLine,” said Arindam Samanta, director of product management and innovation for Verisk.

FireLine gives a score for each risk factor and an overall wildfire hazard score. Insurers use the information for underwriting, rating and exposure management purposes.

“They can use this information in their decision-making, whether it’s around the selection of the risk or pricing of the risk. It depends on what each insurer wants to do with the information.”

Verisk is expanding into Alberta and B.C. from the western United States, where it already offers the service.

“We know that Canada has a really forested landscape and a lot of these are old-growth forests. There’s also an expansion of development in the so-called wildland-urban interface. We also know that in the past several years, there have been some large fires,” Samanta said, referring to the 2011 Slave Lake fire and the 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park fire in British Columbia.

“In the past several years, we have interacted with insurers and they have expressed interest in understanding the risk better.”

After a couple of years of research, the company has just launched the FireLine product. Samanta says it’s a coincidence that it happened three weeks after Fort McMurray was evacuated because of a wildfire.

The 88-per-cent score for high and extreme risk for the Fort McMurray fire perimeter is consistent with the analyses of past wildfires.

“When we look at the areas affected by wildfires, we will typically see a confluence of these factors that tend to produce large areas within the wildfire that would be at higher risk.”

The score refers to all land in the burned area, not just the city alone, Samanta said.