Approximately 12,000 natural gas and 2,400 electricity customers who experienced evacuation orders this summer due to the wildfires will receive a credit from FortisBC.
“Customers can expect to receive a credit on consumption charges related to the time that they were evacuated,” said Nicole Bogdanovic, FortisBC communications advisor Monday. ”It will be applied as a credit to their bill.”
Bogdanovic said FortisBC applied to the BC Utilities Commission at the beginning of August, asking for approval to provide customers with a credit and on Aug. 25 received approval.
“We’re super happy to get a positive result,” she said. “We cannot fully appreciate how stressful this has been, but we do want to support our customers and help in some small way.”
It is very likely customers have already been billed for that time period, she noted but said customers should not worry because it will show up as a credit at a later date.
“They should still pay their bill as normal,” she added.
In a press release Monday FortisBC said the credit program is for impacted natural gas customers and includes the basic, commodity, storage and transport and delivery charges.
Soon after the wildfires began in the region on July 6, FortisBC posted some “good” information on its website about safety of the public and its employees, Bogdanovic said.
“We are responsible for infrastructure up to a certain point to the metre of an individual’s house. Under a meter comes under the domain of the B.C. Safety Authority,” Bogdanovic said. “One of our concerns is if people are making repairs on their own property, to certainly call before they dig to avoid hitting any of our utilities.”
The company has also paused collection-related activities for customers in these regions, including calls to customers to remind them of outstanding amounts and are waiving late payment charges on impacted accounts. As people return home, customers can contact Fortis BC - 1-888-224-2710 (natural gas) or 1-866-436-7847 (electricity) - if they have concerns about their bills or their services.