The CEO of Parks Canada is fiercely defending the work done by his agency and others over the years to prepare for the potential of a catastrophic wildfire breaking out in Jasper National Park, one week after exactly such an event unfolded.
“The fact is that Parks Canada and our partners have done everything we reasonably could have done,” Ron Hallman told reporters as he faced multiple questions about the park’s preparedness for a blaze that forced 25,000 people to flee the park and which damaged or destroyed an estimated 30 per cent of the Jasper townsite.
“I have no doubt those efforts over may years … significantly mitigated what could been an even more devastating fire.”
Hallman’s comments came at a news conference on Monday held via video call that also saw Parks Canada incident commander Landon Shepherd, Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland and federal Environment and Climate Change and Minister Steven Guilbeault speak.
“We work to minimize risk,” Hallman said, adding that for many years, park personnel have worked on prescribed burns in the area, as well as strategically removing combustible materials from forested areas, installing protective sprinkler systems and “firesmarting” the community of Jasper.
“All of those things are simply tools to help us face a fire that might come.”
Hallman said prescribed burns have been taking place in the Jasper area since 1996.
Emergency officials have said accounts from firefighters on the front lines told them about powerful winds gusts of 125 km/h or more blowing a wall of flames that was at least 100 metres high into the Jasper townsite on Wednesday night.
“They were facing a raging inferno that defied conventional firefighting tools,” Guilbeault said, adding that “no requests for assistance went unmet.”
Hallman echoed Guilbeault’s comments, noting that incident commanders have told him “Parks Canada had all the resources needed to fight the fire” and that all requests for assistance and support had been granted.
Officials have acknowledged that Jasper National Park, like much of Alberta’s forested area, has been left vulnerable to the threat of wildfire by the spread of mountain pine beetle over the years. By the end of 2022, over 2.4 million hectares of forest in the province had been affected by the beetles. Combined with hot and dry conditions, the vulnerable forests are susceptible to fire.
Hallman said that no human or piece of equipment would have been able to stop the fire from entering the Jasper townsite last week.
“It’s just not possible,” he said, adding he acknowledges that many people are devastated by what happened and want answers. “There will be time to look at what can and should be done differently.
“(But) don’t take it from me, take it from the mayor, … about the work that we have done hand and glove together for many years to try to avoid this horrible day.”
Ireland said he believes some people have yet to be able to process the magnitude and sheer ferocity of the fire that hit Jasper.
He noted that about 140 square miles of forest in the region were “absolutely full of dead pine beetle trees” and that there is simply no way to remove all of them.
“For anyone who might see this as a failure, I reject that premise,” he said, before adding that the wildfire preparation and response was in many ways a success because about 70 per cent of the townsite was saved and no deaths or injuries were reported.
“If you make an analogy to a battle, we anticipate with Parks Canada that something like this could happen, so we fortified our community. … When the attack came, those defences worked.
“We suffered casualties, … but we did hold our ground.”
Shepherd described the pine beetles’ spread as a “big problem” and noted the spread was particularly extensive between 2014 and 2018. He added that additional challenges when it came to fighting the Jasper fires were the intensity of the blaze and overall conditions faced by firefighters.
“Anyone who is involved in fire management can tell you that things have become more difficult, especially in the last five years,” he said. “This wasn’t something that caught us blindsided.”
Shepherd said had Parks Canada and the Municipality of Jasper not taken the steps they had over the years to prepare for a potential calamity, he believes the fires would have resulted in an even “more serious impact.”
“The individual stories of bravery and hardship are something Canadians will always remember,” Guilbeault said of the firefighters currently working in Jasper.
Hallman noted that many Parks Canada staff live in Jasper and have been devastated by what has happened, even as they work to battle the blazes.
He added that he is grateful for the “collaborative, all-hands-on-deck approach that has been put in place” between his agency, the Municipality of Jasper, the federal government and the provincial government.
The executive director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency also defended the response, saying the municipality and Parks Canada have worked very closely over the past several years to prepare for this kind of emergency.
“Just six weeks prior to this, they exercised together a wildfire scenario not dissimilar to what they faced on the 22nd of July,” said Steve Carr. “So, I would suggest that they were very well prepared and very well integrated and worked very well together to face this emergency.
“It is hard to imagine in advance and very hard to prepare for such a dramatic situation. They were a well-prepared community by all accounts.”
Latest on Jasper National Park wildfire situation
The evacuation order for Jasper National Park remains in effect and emergency officials warn that although plans are being made for an eventual staged re-entry for people forced to flee the park’s townsite, the risks still posed by nearby wildfires mean that it is too soon to say when such a plan could take effect. They added that there are also hazards within the townsite as a result of the damage caused by the flames.
On Sunday night, Parks Canada officials said crews remained busy and that members of the Canadian Armed Forces have been also working on spot fires on the northwest side of the town of Jasper.
Temperatures in the area are expected to be in the mid-20s this week and with the relatively cooler temperatures compared to earlier this month, Parks Canada said it is using the time to make progress on fires. That includes installing a 12-inch sprinkler line along the community fireguard.
James Eastham, an information officer with Parks Canada, told Gobal News on Monday that about 12 mm of rain has fallen in the area over “the past couple of days.”
“With the higher relative humidity that you can feel in the air right now, that’s led to a lot less fire activity around the wildfire area,” he said. “And that’s allowed us to get all of these wonderful crews that showed up out on the line and starting to secure that perimeter.
“Crews go about 100 feet in from the edge of where things have been burned and they put out all of the hot spots that are remaining.
“This fire burned very intensely and the soil and fuels … were very dry, so it has burned quite deeply into the ground. … It takes a lot of time and a lot of water to put out each of those individual hot spots, and until those hot spots are extinguished, under warmer, drier, windier conditions they can pop back up again the fire can continue to grow.”
Eastham said heavy equipment like bulldozers is being used to scrape down inflammable areas and reduces that possibility of fires spreading.
“And there are areas where we can have an ignition specialist gathering ways that we can use controlled ignition to help secure the fire to landscape features.”
The Alberta government is hosting a telephone town hall at 6:30 p.m. Monday for evacuees to get updates on the wildfire situation. More information on the town hall can be found on the government’s website.
For the latest information on which areas in Alberta are under an evacuation alert or order due to a wildfire, visit the Alberta Emergency Alert website.
For the latest information on the wildfire status and danger across the province, visit the Alberta Wildfire website.
The latest information on fire advisories, restrictions and bans across the province can be found on the Alberta fire bans website.
For the latest on road closures in Alberta, you can visit the 511 Alberta website.