A wildfire that’s destroyed hundreds of structures in the town of Jasper, Alta., and continues to burn out of control in the national park could still be burning months from now, a Parks Canada official says.
“This fire is the largest one that Jasper National Park has recorded in the last 100 years,” Landon Shepherd, a deputy incident commander with the federal agency, told a news conference on Saturday afternoon in nearby Hinton, Alta.
“We’re going to be working on this wildfire, we expect, over the next three months at least. What the last five years has taught us is that the fire season in Jasper tends to last well into the fall.”
Shepherd said the region got about 12 millimetres of rain over about a day and a half, and while that was good, there were still active hot spots near the community. Fire activity was beginning to pick up again, although not to the same degree as last week, he said.
Warmer weather is expected over the coming days.
Alberta emergency officials will provide an update about wildfires throughout the province at 2 p.m. MT Sunday. CBC News will air it live here.
More than 20,000 people in and around the town nestled in the Rocky Mountains, about 350 kilometres west of Edmonton, were ordered to evacuate late Monday night due to fast-moving wildfires.
Parks Canada has estimated that close to a third of the town’s structures were damaged by the wildfire, with 358 of the 1,113 structures destroyed.
The Municipality of Jasper released an updated map and list of damaged or destroyed properties on Saturday afternoon.
In an online update, Parks Canada said fire suppression has been progressing well in the Jasper townsite, and it anticipated all remaining fires there would be extinguished on Saturday.
Structural protection sprinklers are being relocated, from previously burned areas to the active fire perimeter adjacent to the community and outlying structures — to protect these areas, Parks Canada said. This includes more structural protection sprinklers being installed at Lake Edith and businesses north of the town of Jasper.
Bulldozers are preparing to put protection lines around the north end of the community and to help reduce spread west of the community on the lower slopes of Whistler Mountain.
Support from Ontario, Quebec, Australia and South Africa is expected to arrive on Sunday.
Atco Ltd., the power and natural gas utility for much of Alberta, made “significant progress” toward assessing its infrastructure in the Jasper area this weekend, the company said in a thread of posts on X, formerly Twitter.
Its crews were able to restore electricity to Jasper’s wastewater treatment plant and most hotels where first responders are staying, the posts said. But “significant repairs” need to be made on its electrical system to restore power to other critical infrastructure.
Atco, the Muncipality of Jasper and Parks Canada — the lead agency on the wildfire response — are working on a two-phase plan to “underground” much of the distribution feed to the town, which will restore power to key facilities and improve reliability.
Crews inspected about half of its gas system so far, according to the posts. But the company did not specify any damage to those lines.
The federal agency said power is being restored to parts of the downtown core and critical infrastructure, which it said would help to speed up further damage assessment and recovery.
Earlier Saturday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told her provincewide radio call-in show that she’d like to see bus tours organized for evacuated residents of Jasper so they can see the damage the wildfire did to their town for themselves, and so they’ll know what to expect when they’re eventually allowed to return home.
The premier told listeners she expected it would be close to 28 days before Jasper residents would be allowed to return to their town, explaining it took a similar amount of time before Fort McMurray, Alta., residents got the green light to go home after it was hit by a ferocious fire in 2016.
Fire crews have deemed Jasper safe enough for CBC to get a first hand look at the damage caused by wildfire.
While Smith said after her tour of the town on Friday that critical infrastructure remained intact, including schools, the hospital and water treatment services, she 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.
Because the town is part of Jasper National Park, rebuilding plans are taking shape with help from the federal government, Smith said.
“We’ve already begun a joint task force on how recovery is going to take place, trying to time when people are able to return to their community, and I’m very hopeful it will come back better than ever,” the premier said.
Smith also said she’d like temporary housing arranged for residents so they can live in the town while they rebuild their homes, noting that temporary housing was also used during the reconstruction of High River, Alta., after it suffered devastating floods in 2013.
“So we have seen a precedent where you set up a temporary community that allows people to live on-site while rebuilding is occurring,” Smith told her radio audience, noting that nearby Hinton may be relied on for construction workers.
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Provincial wildfire officials said an estimated 17,100 Albertans have been evacuated due to wildfires as of Saturday.
The province said there were 157 wildfires burning across Alberta, with 44 classified as out of control, 45 being held and 68 under control.