Despite grim news about 30 per cent of Jasper structures have been lost in a devastating wildfire, a town official says there’s still “truly a community to go back to” after touring the area on Sunday.
According to Christine Nadon, incident commander for the Municipality of Jasper, about 70 per cent of of structures were saved and on entering the town — her second time since the fires hit — she was happy to see so many buildings standing.
“I recognize my town, our fire hall is still there,” she said. “There’s really, truly a community to go back to. The devastation is pretty intense on the west side of town, essentially, but lots of our infrastructure was saved.”
Critical infrastructure remained intact, including schools, the hospital, and water treatment services, but Premier Danielle Smith said on Saturday that staff needed to get inside the hospital to check for damage since there were reports its roof had been on fire.
Media were given the opportunity, alongside officials, to tour the townsite in Jasper National Park on Sunday, bearing witness to the devastation with some foundations all that remained in place of the homes that once stood there, and burned out vehicles.
Only pieces of Jasper Anglican Church, which construction began for in 1928, remained in its place which was across from the community’s hospital and fire hall, both of which survived.
Fire Chief Mathew Conte told Global News he saw his own home burn down during his tactical patrols.
“It was pretty overwhelming,” he said. “We had a lot going on that night and seeing we’re losing our home was very difficult. But we had to put that behind me and kind of focus on the task at hand, couldn’t save what was already lost but we needed to do what we could to prevent further damage to the town.”
He added it was ‘heartbreaking” how much of the town was lost.
Approximately 30 per cent of the buildings in Jasper are estimated to have been damaged by the wildfires, amounting to 358 of the town’s 1,113 structures destroyed, which also include the Nadon and the mayor’s own homes.
Sunday’s tour comes a day after the municipality of Jasper released a high-resolution map and list of properties showing which structures had been destroyed since the fire entered the townsite. Single-family homes, apartments, a hostel, a senior’s manor and a church were among the buildings destroyed.
As of Saturday evening, the wildfire remained out of control with expectations it could become more active in the coming days with warmer weather forecasted.
“Currently we are going to be working on this wildfire we expect over the next three months at least,” Landon Shephard, deputy incident commander with Parks Canada, said Saturday. “We are gearing up for a long struggle.
Nearly an entire block of homes could be levelled to the ground but in some cases a single house remained standing, the newly released map showed.
The map only showed those buildings in the townsite, but many of the resorts south of Jasper along Highway 93 were not captured, but saw extensive damage.
Alpine Village said it lost half its 54 cabins, while Tekarra Lodge lost several buildings — their front office, the main building with the restaurant, and several cabins — but didn’t have hard numbers. Becker’s Chalets also lost five buildings.
Nadon said in a separate briefing on Saturday that the toll is still being calculated in terms of how much of the residential population has been impacted compared to the number of buildings destroyed.
The town cautioned the information on the losses is still preliminary and is based on the damage that is visible from the street.
As residents continue to learn more information about their home, there could be some relief coming as both the Alberta and federal governments said they’ll match donations to the Canadian Red Cross for wildfire relief across the province.
Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan and Alberta Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis said every $1 donated will become $3 to support people most impacted in Jasper and across the province.
The donation-matching initiative will last for 30 days, retroactive to when the 2024 Alberta Wildfires Appeal first opened this past Thursday.
A Parks Canada official said Saturday that the blaze is the largest that Jasper National Park has recorded in the last 100 years.
—with files from Global News’ Karen Bartko and Jayme Doll, and The Canadian Press