Lessons from the Jasper wildfire: build disaster-ready, energy-secure homes
It's hard to put into words what it’s like to watch the community you love burn, particularly one which, as its mayor, you are entrusted to protect.
Two years ago, that was my reality as a wildfire blazed through Jasper, Alta., destroying a third of our buildings, including my own home, which had housed four generations of our family.
Like many of my neighbours, I was only able to salvage a few treasured keepsakes from my home’s ashes: a pair of harmonicas gifted from my father and my sons; my late uncle’s ceremonial sword; my eldest son’s Governor General’s medal. Next month, I’ll finally be able to place those reminders of the past into my new home.
An experience like this changes you. Before the fire, I may have remained silent—as do so many, especially in Alberta—about the critical need to transition away from fossil fuels. Yet, the evidence is clear: weeks of high temperatures, driven by climate change, helped spur the extreme wildfire that burned through our community. I now feel a duty to speak out, to do whatever I can to help prevent other communities from experiencing the grief and trauma that Jasper continues to endure. With about 900 wildfires burning across Canada, this message feels especially urgent.
As we in Jasper rebuild, Canada, too, is undergoing a building boom. Our federal government is rightly investing billions of dollars to address a national housing crisis. And if we want to keep Canadians safe and ensure these investments aren’t wasted, it matters how these homes are built.
We face a stark choice: continue building like we did in the 1950s and trap families in homes that are expensive or impossible to insure, costly to heat and cool, and reliant on the very fossil fuels stoking these climate catastrophes. Or we can choose now to build for 2050 and beyond: disaster-ready, energy-secure homes that protect families, while preventing more extreme weather-fueling pollution and the exorbitant costs it extracts.
That’s why 300 mayors and councillors, representing over half of all Canadians, are calling for a national public effort to build and retrofit homes equipped with clean technologies like heat pumps and solar panels, adopt enhanced building codes, and require climate risk assessments. This endeavour will put thousands of people to work in local, tariff-proof jobs. And it can all be done with Canadian-owned clean energy. That’s good for our communities, our climate, and our economy: a nation-building project worthy of the name.
Our European allies are already building better, with France and the United Kingdom require heat pumps in new buildings to maintain energy sovereignty and to protect citizens from spiking energy bills. Meanwhile, Canada is lagging. Our adoption of heat pumps and solar panels is sluggish. Nearly two million Canadian households face energy poverty. And climate disasters continue to disrupt lives and devastate communities. Insurable losses from climate disasters have risen tenfold since 2000, exceeding $8.4-billion in 2024, the year Jasper burned. Uninsured losses might double that, even before accounting for the costs to the public for disaster response and recovery.
Critics may claim that requiring homes to be climate-ready adds costs and red tape. Instead, these safeguards represent critical, strategic investments. In Jasper, we no longer allow cedar-shake roofs on new builds, a smart precaution in a fire-prone environment. It is a false economy to allow new homes to be built cheaply only to subject homeowners and renters to bank account-breaking energy bills, no protection from heat and smoke, and the prospect of no insurance.
Two years after Jasper’s fire, I’m grateful to be preparing to move into my new home, alongside neighbours who’ve weathered this tragedy together. I deeply appreciate the federal government’s commitment to “rebuild Jasper stronger, safer, and ready for the future.” And as much as I cherish Jasper’s iconic status, and appreciate the outpouring of support from Canadians from coast to coast to coast in our time of need, my heart knows that all Canadians deserve safe and stable homes.
Let’s build Canadian homes that are truly ready for the future, not—like the one I lost—built for a past which no longer exists.
Richard Ireland is the mayor of Jasper, Alta., and a founding member of Elbows Up for Climate, a growing alliance of 300 Canadian mayors and councillors advocating for clean nation-building projects.
The Hill Times