Buildings in Jasper, Alta., are in flames, while smoke in the town has forced more first responders fighting an out-of-control wildfire to leave the scene.
A wildfire threatened the mountainside townsite for days from the south, but finally reached the community Wednesday evening. Structures in the community, including the Maligne Lodge, are aflame.
Parks Canada started relocating many first responders to Hinton, Alta., Wednesday, and a cavalcade of RCMP vehicles drove out of the community Wednesday evening. As of 8:30 p.m., air quality worsened so much that firefighters without self-contained breathing apparatuses were forced to evacuate.
Structural firefighters are still in town trying to protect the town about 365 kilometres west of Edmonton. They are trying to protect buildings and critical infrastructure, including the wastewater treatment plant and Trans Mountain Pipeline — among others.
“If you have not yet evacuated town, you must leave now,” said a joint news release from Parks Canada and the Municipality of Jasper.
Meanwhile, the Alberta government is seeking help from the military to help combat wildfires burning throughout Alberta.
With the province experiencing significant wildfire activity, Alberta’s government is requesting assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces. We are requesting firefighting resources and aerial support to move wildfire crews and equipment, and more.<br><br>We thank our provincial and… <a href=”https://t.co/10J6LrrPMb”>https://t.co/10J6LrrPMb</a>
—@dtloewen
Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis and Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen explained the situation to their federal counterparts, according to posts they made on X, formerly Twitter, late Wednesday afternoon.
More than 176 total wildfires were burning throughout the province as of 8 p.m. Wednesday, according to Alberta Wildfire. The province says more than 17,500 people in Alberta are displaced by various fires.
The government has asked the feds for more firefighting resources, aerial support to move crews and equipment and help evacuating remote communities — among other things, Loewen said.
The supports will be used, at least in part, to reduce the risk of fires burning down homes, businesses, critical infrastructure and communities, according to Wednesday’s wildfire update.
The Canadian government will make “all necessary resources available” for firefighting, evacuation and “logistical support,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan said Wednesday. During an earlier, unrelated news conference in B.C., Sajjan acknowledged all of the people who have had to evacuate from the fires.
Multiple fires are burning in Jasper National Park. Two in particular, burning north and south of the town of Jasper, forced up to 25,000 people to evacuate the park earlier this week, as parched conditions fed them toward the community.
The south fire, helped by strong winds, reached the Jasper townsite shortly before 6:45 p.m., according to social media posts.
The fire activity is so severe, Parks Canada announced on Facebook late Wednesday afternoon, that it is moving first responders to Hinton. At the time, some firefighting personnel, aircraft and “a small number” of incident command staff were kept in Jasper.
“This decision has not been made lightly,” the post said, but they had to limit the number of responders exposed to the fires, given their intensities.
“The safety of the public and responders is our top priority.”
The south fire doubled in size overnight. It and the north fire were expected to grow Wednesday. Parks Canada incident commander Katie Ellsworth, during a news conference Wednesday morning, warned crews would face another challenging day.
Dropping water on the fire from helicopters proved ineffective Wednesday afternoon and water bombers were unable to help due to dangerous flying conditions. Fire guards weren’t able to be completed before heavy equipment had to be pulled from the line for safety, according to the joint news release.
An ignition specialist had arrived earlier Wednesday to help finish landscape-level ignition, which would bring the fire toward large holding features like Highway 16 and the Athabasca River, the release said. But “unfavourable conditions” didn’t allow the work to be finished.
Firefighters still in town are fighting “multiple” structural fires and trying to protect critical infrastructure, said a Facebook post from Jasper National Park Wednesday evening.
As of Wednesday morning’s update, the fire burning north of Jasper had scorched at least 270 hectares. The fire burning south of town had doubled in size burning an estimated 10,800 hectares of forest.
At least 10,000 residents and 15,000 visitors were forced out of the national park Monday night under an evacuation order as the fires flared after days of scorching heat.
In a news conference Wednesday morning, Parks Canada incident commander Katie Ellsworth said crews are facing another challenging day attempting to keep the flames away from homes and businesses.
She said “aggressive” fire behaviour is expected to continue.
“It is still a very dynamic situation,” Ellsworth said. “We expect today that we’re going to have strong winds continuing and we expect that this will increase our fire behaviour and fire growth on both sides and on all flanks.
“Winds in Jasper have been consistently high and gusty for the last several weeks and this has not changed in the last few days, and there was significant fire behaviour and fire spread. We do anticipate that conditions are going to be similar again today.”
As of Tuesday evening, the wildfire to the south of Jasper had burned at least 6,750 hectares and drawn within 12 kilometres of the townsite.
The southern fire stretches from the Kerkeslin campground and follows the Icefields Parkway to the north. It has burned areas near Horseshoe Lake and Wabasso Lake.
Crews have been tracking the flames from the sky, but accurately mapping their spread has been stymied by thick columns of smoke filling the sky.
There is little relief in the forecast until Thursday evening when rain is expected in the area, Ellsworth said
Parks Canada Incident Commander Katie Ellsworth gives an update on the Jasper wildfire, which is five kilometres from the Jasper townsite.
“However, the rain doesn’t count until it’s on the ground and there isn’t enough rain in this forecast to control the wildfire,” she said. “It is still burning out of control and very aggressively.”
She said emergency officials believe some infrastructure along the Icefields Parkway and Highway 16 has been damaged but conditions were too risky for crews to fully assess the losses.
Crews were scrambling to protect the homes of almost 5,000 residents by bulldozing a fireguard on the southern edge of town, installing massive sprinkler systems on buildings hat house critical infrastructure and safeguarding homes by removing flammable materials from properties.
“We are working very hard to protect the community,” Ellsworth said.
The town has emptied out but in the backcountry, the evacuation is ongoing. Emergency officials remain concerned about hikers who may still be unaccounted for.
Jasper is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies — covering 11,228 square kilometres of extensive trails and mountain terrain — and getting the message out to everyone on the trail has proven difficult.
During Wednesday’s news conference, Ellsworth said 245 hikers have either been picked up or helped to leave the park since the evacuation began.
She said helicopter crews are flying low along the trails, working to airlift stranded hikers out or direct them toward a safe trailhead, when possible.
She said the most dangerous backcountry areas have been cleared but the sweeps will continue Wednesday in lower-risk areas.
All hikers reported missing or in distress have been accounted for, but Albertans are encouraged to contact people who may be in the mountains and unaware of the fire danger.
Volatile conditions
Ellsworth said Tuesday she called for the evacuation orders to be issued as the fires flared dangerously Monday evening. Volatile conditions were driven weeks of relentless heat and strong gusting winds, she said.
“These fires were exhibiting aggressive, aggressive fire behaviour,” she said.
“Unfortunately due to the weather conditions at the time, and the gusting strong winds, it was really quickly very apparent that life safety needed to come first and we needed to evacuate immediately.”
After the order to leave, thousands of vehicles gridlocked roads leading to safety.
With wildfires cutting off highway access east to Edmonton and south along the Icefields Parkway, many were forced west into British Columbia. Evacuees were initially ordered west but were later redirected to Alberta.
Reception centres have since been set up in Grande Prairie, Calgary and Edmonton, where evacuees are being helped with accommodations.
Parks Canada is managing the firefighting efforts from a unified command centre but local, provincial and federal agencies are assisting in the response.
“The degree of collaboration and co-operation is extremely high,” Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said Wednesday. “Those jurisdictional boundaries are just forgotten. People are working as a team.”
The town is now focused on providing critical services to first responders who have descended on the area, Ireland said.
“As the fire approaches, that may have to change. We’ll see how the day goes.”
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