Thousands flee wildfires near Canada’s Jasper National Park | Climate Crisis News

Authorities are ordering evacuations as “multiple wildfires” rage in a popular tourist area in the Canadian Rockies.

Thousands of residents and tourists have fled the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies after authorities warned that wildfires could soon start, raising fears of another record fire season in the country.

Jasper National Park reported Tuesday morning that “multiple wildfires” were burning in the park, located about 370 km (230 miles) west of Edmonton in the western province of Alberta.

“This is an evolving situation. Parks Canada fire personnel will continue to assess the wildfires at sunrise,” the park said in a post on its Facebook page.

Parks Canada, which manages Canada’s 48 national parks, said it would send additional resources and personnel to the area on Tuesday morning.

Photos and videos shared on social media overnight showed cars and trucks driving bumper-to-bumper through the smoke as they tried to get away from the park and the town of Jasper, home to 4,700 people.

“It’s wall-to-wall traffic,” Edmonton resident Carolyn Campbell told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from her car early Tuesday morning.

Campbell said it took hours to drive just 7 km (about four miles), and although they had plenty of gas, she worried about others who fled with little in the tank. “(The smoke) is pretty thick. We have masks in the car,” she said.

In April, federal officials said Canada was at risk of another “catastrophic” wildfire season due to higher than normal spring and summer temperatures across much of the country.

Last week there was a heat wave that worsened the drought and several forest fires broke out.

The new fires have raised concerns that the country could once again experience wildfires like those seen last year during a record summer, forcing evacuations across the country and sending huge plumes of smoke across the United States.

Last year, more than 6,600 wildfires burned 15 million hectares (37 million acres) in Canada, about seven times the annual average.

Climate change has made Canada’s wildfire season longer and easier for fires to start and spread, experts say.

According to official figures, about 170 fires were burning in Alberta on Tuesday, with about a third of them still out of control.

Jasper National Park and city officials are working to clear traffic congestion, find fuel for vehicles and get vulnerable people to safety, while also deploying resources to fight the fires.

The evacuees were told they had five hours to leave and to take important documents, pets, medicine and other emergency supplies with them.

BC will do everything we can to provide safe shelter for Jasper evacuees and we are working as quickly as possible to coordinate routes and arrange for host communities on our side of the border. https://t.co/ENauwxoaX8

— Bowinn Ma (@BowinnMa) July 23, 2024

Fires threatening from the northeast have closed the highway eastbound toward Edmonton.

Another fire, raging from the south, forced the closure of the north-south Icefields Parkway, leaving one route open: west into neighboring British Columbia, where officials scrambled to find places for people to stay.

“BC will do everything we can to provide safe shelter for Jasper evacuees, and we are working as quickly as possible to coordinate routes and arrange for host communities on our side of the border,” said Bowinn Ma, BC’s emergency management minister, in a social media post.