Parks Canada, Guilbeault defend wildfire preparedness policy after Jasper fire

Parks Canada officials and politicians angrily denied Monday that forest management policies in Jasper National Park contributed to a catastrophic wildfire that destroyed a third of the town.

Ron Hallman, CEO of the federal agency, said it was “ridiculous” to claim his organization values ​​nature more than people.

“That’s insulting, quite frankly,” he said. “There’s nothing more important to Parks Canada than the safety of our employees, our guests and the people we work with.”

While firefighters reported Monday that fires in the town of Jasper have been extinguished and progress is being made in fighting the blaze, flames are still raging in the Rocky Mountain park, 360 kilometres west of Edmonton.

More than 20,000 people in and around the community were ordered to evacuate on Monday due to the speed at which the fires spread, with more than 30 percent of the city’s buildings destroyed.

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said a phased re-entry plan for those residents is being developed, though he did not provide a timetable. The highway through the park remains closed.

Critics have suggested that more could have been done to reduce the fire risk in the area. Some say prescribed fires should have been used to thin out forests that were full of highly flammable dead trees, especially those killed by the mountain pine beetle.

Hallman said Parks Canada has been conducting controlled burns in Jasper since 1996. He said there have been 15 controlled burns in Jasper in the past decade, covering thousands of hectares.

“We are doing everything we reasonably can to clear undergrowth, to conduct prescribed burns, to reduce risks to property, cities and people.”

Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland defended Parks Canada, saying the impact of the mountain pine beetle was so widespread in the park that it would have been impossible to remove all the dead trees.

“We’re talking about a valley that’s miles wide and 30 miles long that’s completely filled with trees that have been killed by pine beetles. There’s no way to remove them all.”

He called the Jasper wildfire response a success, saying the city and Parks Canada were aware of the risk and took steps to prepare the city, including becoming one of Canada’s first FireSmart communities.

“We anticipated that something like this could happen, so we strengthened our community,” he said.

“When the attack came, those defenses worked. We suffered losses, but we held our ground.”

Steve Carr, director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, said exercises were conducted six weeks ago to prepare for such an event.

“I would say that they were very well prepared, very well integrated and very well cooperating to face this emergency, the scale of which is difficult to imagine in advance and it is very difficult to prepare for such a dramatic situation,” he said.

“By all accounts, the community was well prepared.”

Guilbeault also stood up for Parks Canada, pointing out that 70 percent of the historic city had been preserved.

“Years of preparation, forest management, simulated evacuations and firefighting efforts have paid off,” he said.

Parks Canada said it is gathering information about what was damaged outside the city. Firefighters are working to protect homes and other accommodations in those remote areas.

Jasper National Park remains closed and the RCMP is keeping the town safe, Parks Canada said. Checkpoints are in place to keep people out.

A Parks Canada official said Saturday that the fire could continue to rage for months.

Jasper evacuees were told Sunday that the Alberta and federal governments will provide additional funding for disaster relief. Both governments said they will match their donations to the Canadian Red Cross’ Alberta Wildfires Appeal 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Minister Harjit Sajjan and Alberta Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis said in a joint press release that the donation matching initiative means every dollar donated will provide $3 in support of those hardest hit by wildfires in Jasper and across the province.

Additional help has also arrived to help fight the fires in Jasper and other parts of Alberta. The Canadian military tweeted photos Sunday of soldiers in Hinton, where it said they were taking a “firefighter refresher course” led by local firefighters.

Forty firefighters from Quebec flew to Edmonton on Sunday for a two-week mission in the field. Support has also arrived from Ontario, Mexico, Alaska, Australia and South Africa — which sent 200 firefighters.

Elsewhere in Alberta, the province reported Sunday that rain helped firefighters extinguish nearly 50 wildfires in the past 48 hours, with another 17 fires no longer burning out of control.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 29, 2024.

— By Bob Weber in Edmonton

The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version misstated a quote from Steven Carr.