A wildfire burns near the town of Jasper on July 24. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says that potentially 30 to 50 per cent of structures have been damaged by the flames after it burned through the community.HO/The Canadian Press
Western Canadian towns have been devastated by wildfire in recent years, including Slave Lake, Fort McMurray and Lytton. And small Indigenous communities, including the Little Red River Cree Nation at this moment, have borne much of the brunt of an increasingly severe wildfire season.
But the world pays special attention when an icon is ravaged. Watching Jasper National Park and its townsite burn is like seeing an exquisite childhood home go up in flames.
It’s not just a vast, unknown forest burning. Jasper is immediately recognizable as one the most beautiful spots on the planet.
It’s the place where people learned to ski, got engaged, or first camped. It’s where you can tough out the backcountry Skyline Trail, or stay in a hotel with window views of wild elk. Jasper is part of a collection of Rocky Mountain parks recognized by UNESCO for the preservation of thousands of square kilometres of still-wild lands. The 5,000-person Jasper townsite still had a friendly and welcoming small-town feel.
An uncharacteristically tearful Danielle Smith struggled to speak as she started a news conference on the fires Thursday. The Alberta Premier talked about the thrill that accompanies “that first glimpse of mountains on the horizon” every time you drive there.
“To those in Alberta and around the world who have experienced the magic of Jasper, the magic is not lost and never will be.”
Banff gets a lot of the limelight as Canada’s oldest and most visited national park. But Jasper immediately north is only slightly less popular – with 2.5 million visitors in 2023 – and is the largest of the mountain parks, covering more than 11,000 square kilometres.
In the townsite, a full accounting of the damage is still ahead. But Ms. Smith said Thursday that potentially 30 to 50 per cent of structures have been damaged by the flames.
It is not only a tourist destination but also a community where people went about their daily lives. It has been forever altered, and the rebuilding and healing will take years. The mayor of Jasper, Richard Ireland, said “in the coming days and weeks, we will rally together, support one another, and begin the daunting process of recovery.”
The ferocity of the fire in Jasper is difficult to comprehend. Gusts of wind pushed one of the two fires in Jasper five kilometres toward the townsite in less than 30 minutes on Wednesday night. Mike Ellis, Alberta’s Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister, described it as “a wall of fire that was about 100 metres high.”
“There is little to nothing you can do when you have a wall of flames coming at you like that.”
Many didn’t want politics to be front and centre as the emergency continued, but political questions are inevitable. Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk of Windsor-Tecumseh was criticized Wednesday for posting a social-media message of support for Jasper that ended with “this is the world that climate-denying Conservatism will leave our children.”
It is true there’s a deep mourning in Western Canada. It’s not only for Jasper, but for a time where wildfires of this intensity, with this much smoky air, were not the norm. Climate change means it is getting much hotter and drier here, with fire seasons that last much longer. There are at least 50 other wildfires in Alberta burning out of control. In nearby Golden, B.C., some town structures were lost at the same time as in Jasper.
In the 48 hours before the wildfire swept into the Jasper townsite, about 25,000 people – both residents and tourists – were safely evacuated from the municipality and the park. This is a tremendous feat.
But the calls for a national wildfire fighting force will become louder, and wildfire management needs far more attention and funding. In Alberta, wildfire programs have faced significant cuts and changes since 2016, including the end of the Helitack-Rappel program, where firefighters were trained to rappel from helicopters to tackle these wildfires. Critics say the United Conservative Party has created a firefighter retention crisis.
But as others are pointing out, decades of fire suppression in Canada’s national parks has also been detrimental. Wildfires are a natural part of the regeneration process for boreal forests. In 2017, Mr. Ireland told the CBC he was worried about swaths of dead, red trees – a sign of mountain pine beetle infestation – being a major fire hazard for Jasper. Dry and brittle trees complicate firefighting. Mr. Ireland said then his townsite could be like Fort McMurray, and Parks Canada needed to do more.
Ed Struzik, the author of Dark Days at Noon: The Future of Fire, said Parks Canada has, especially in recent years, been working to thin the forest.
“They just started too late and a little too slow with tree thinning and prescribed burns to get ahead of the curve,” said Mr. Struzik, a fellow at the Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy.
“The pace of climate warming has also overtaken their ability to catch up.”
Mr. Struzik believes all governments need to invest much more in the science of fire weather and prediction, and to enact policies to protect wetlands, the natural barriers to fire.
He added that he believes Parks Canada has been doing more than most provinces to deal with wildfire. “That’s a scary thought considering what happened to Jasper.”
Have a story to share about Jasper?
Deadly wildfires are threatening this beloved UNESCO World Heritage site, where so many Canadians and tourists have visited over the years.
The Globe is looking for the stories people want to share about their memorable Jasper experiences. Was it the site of a family trip with multi-generations? The place you got engaged? The town you discovered your aptitude for hiking? Share your story in the box below, and you can also send photos from your trips to audience@globeandmail.com.