The estimated cost of wildfire damage in the Rocky Mountain town of Jasper has ballooned to $1.23 billion, partly because the municipality's relative isolation is making it more expensive to remove debris, say insurance industry officials.

The new cost estimate for the July 2024 wildfire, calculated by the Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ) and released Wednesday, is $350 million higher than August's initial estimate of $880 million. 

And the figure is backed up by the Insurance …