The remains of Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland's home of 67 years in Jasper, Alberta, Canada on Friday, July 26, 2024. AMBER BRACKEN/Pool via REUTERSAmber Bracken/Reuters
Richard Ireland approached his home from a side street in Jasper, Alta., the mountain town in which he was born and has lived his entire life.
He saw his back fence. The roof of his garage. His neighbour’s house.
“I had a glimmer of hope,” Mr. Ireland, the Mayor of Jasper, told reporters Friday evening after returning from a tour of his town with Premier Danielle Smith, federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Harjit Sajjan and others.
“We came to the street corner and saw a foundation. Charred remains.”
The group stopped and he walked over for a closer look. There were tiny flames and smoke emerging from what was once his basement. The first floor had collapsed.
“There’s nothing there,” Mr. Ireland said, his voice occasionally cracking with emotion.
His garage remains, mostly full of bicycles. “When I get a chance, I can hop on one of my bikes and go for a ride.”
The mayor is 68 and has lived in his home for 67 years. He was visiting family out of town Monday when fires started near Jasper. By Wednesday evening, the fire licked the town’s outskirts and destroyed roughly 30 per cent of its structures. Most of the lost buildings are homes, officials said, although a handful of businesses in the downtown area were also lost.
Jasper National Park said on social media Friday that 358 of the town’s 1,113 structures were destroyed. The hospital suffered superficial damage on the exterior but is considered unaffected. The town’s critical infrastructure survived, largely unscathed.
The wildfires were first spotted Monday evening and quickly forced roughly 10,000 seasonal and permanent residents in Jasper, alongside another 15,000 visitors in the town and Jasper National Park, to evacuate.
Mr. Ireland’s account provides the first glimpse of what residents can expect when they return home.
“There are hundreds of houses, whole neighbourhoods, just gone,” Mr. Ireland said.
Ms. Smith said the mayor’s house was the only one on the block that was lost to fire, underscoring how flying embers can flatten one home while leaving the next untouched. She said the air in Jasper smelled toxic, and that she could feel it in her lungs.
Officials have yet to say when residents can return, even just to survey the damage.
The premier noted that when parts of Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta, burned in 2016, about a month passed before residents were allowed to return.
“I hope the people can be a bit patient,” Ms. Smith said. “Because having seen what we have seen, there’s an awful lot of work that they have to do to be able to secure different zones, make them safe, so people can return home.”
Ms. Smith said a lot of structures remain standing in Jasper’s downtown and she believes people will be encouraged when they return. “There are a lot of memories that are still intact.”
But she noted one area lost about 100 homes. “That’s a big community that is going to really have a lot of pain.”
Ms. Smith announced financial assistance will be immediately available to Jasper evacuees. Adults will receive a one-time payment of $1,250 and an extra $500 per child under 18 in their care. “Together, we’ll get through this,” Ms. Smith said. “No matter what comes, we are not going to lose the enduring magic of Jasper.”
Mathew Conte, the Municipality of Jasper’s fire chief, was also in town Friday afternoon. The fire consumed his home in Jasper’s Cabin Creek neighbourhood, flattening most of the area, save for five or six homes and the Stone Mountain condos, he said.
“I don’t know if there is a way you can really prepare for it,” Mr. Conte said. “You think you can. Our crews are trained. They’ve seen structure fires before. But to go through it and see that in your own community, it is very overwhelming. It is just not something you can prepare yourself for until you see it.”
Landon Shepherd, the deputy incident commander on the fire, said although Jasper had been preparing for a disaster like this for 20 years and had access to firefighting resources, the crews could not compete with the wind. Mr. Shepherd said the wind exceeded 100 kilometres an hour Wednesday evening, pushing the wall of flame toward town and sparking a shower of embers that ignited smaller fires.
The wind also downed healthy, mature trees in town, he noted.
Mr. Shepherd said the wind Friday evening was blowing the fire away from the townsite, but the heat is expected to return next week.
Mr. Conte and Mr. Shepherd estimated roughly 100 structural firefighters were in town Friday evening and between 300 to 400 wildland firefighters were back in the field working to contain the blaze.
Mr. Ireland hopes residents will focus on rebuilding rather than assigning blame.
“I’m going to encourage residents to not dwell on the why, the how. Let’s just move forward with what we’ve got, together,” he said.