A Parks Canada official says a wildfire that’s destroyed hundreds of structures in the town of Jasper and continues to burn out-of-control in the national park could still be burning months from now.
“This fire is the largest one that Jasper National Park has recorded in the last 100 years,” Landon Shepherd, a deputy incident commander with the federal agency, told a news conference on Saturday afternoon in nearby Hinton, Alta.
“We’re going to be working on this wildfire, we expect, over the next three months at least. What the last five years has taught us is that the fire season in Jasper tends to last well into the fall.”
Shepherd said the region got about 12 millimetres of rain over about a day and a half, and while that was good, there were still active hot-spots near the community. And, he said, fire activity was beginning to pick up again, although not to the same degree as last week.
More than 20,000 people in and around the town nestled in the Rocky Mountains four hours west of Edmonton were ordered to evacuate late Monday night due to fast-moving wildfires.
Parks Canada has estimated 30 per cent of the town’s structures were damaged by the wildfire, with 358 of the town’s 1,113 structures destroyed.
Among the properties affected by the wildfire include the well-known Maligne Lodge.
Christine Nadon, the incident commander with the Municipality of Jasper, told the news conference that an updated map and list of damaged or destroyed properties would be released publicly on Saturday afternoon.
Nadon acknowledged some people would prefer such traumatic information to be delivered privately. But she said in order to get the news out in a timely fashion, it needs to be public for all to see.
“The information we are releasing today is based on the damage that is visible from the street. We have not been inside buildings or seen the backside of properties,” Nadon warned, adding that an initial assessment showed the majority of the damaged structures were destroyed, not damaged.
“We’re looking at foundations,” she said.
In an online update, Parks Canada said fire suppression has been progressing well in the Jasper townsite and it anticipated all remaining fires there would be extinguished on Saturday.
The federal agency noted power is being restored to parts of the downtown core and critical infrastructure, which it said would help to speed up further damage assessment and recovery.
Earlier Saturday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told her provincewide radio call-in show she‘d like to see bus tours organized for evacuated residents of Jasper so they can see the damage a wildfire did to their town for themselves, and so they’ll know what to expect when they’re eventually allowed to return home.
Nadon responded that tours for residents, likely with buses, is something they’re working on but conditions weren’t safe for them yet due to chemicals released from burned structures and the fire that’s still burning on the edge of town.
“That is a plan we’re working on and will have available as soon as we can,” she said.
Smith, along with Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland and other dignitaries, toured the evacuated town on Friday, where they passed the charred remains of the home where Ireland himself grew up.
Nadon said her own home was among the many destroyed.
The premier told listeners Saturday she expected it would be close to 28 days before Jasper residents would be allowed to return to their town, explaining it took a similar amount of time before Fort McMurray residents got the green light to go home after it was hit by a ferocious fire in 2016.
While Smith said after her tour of the town Friday that critical infrastructure remained intact, including schools, the hospital, and water treatment services, she said on Saturday that staff needed to get inside the hospital to check for damage since there were reports its roof had been on fire.
Because the town is part of Jasper National Park, rebuilding plans are taking shape with help from the federal government, Smith said.
“We’ve already begun a joint task force on how recovery is going to take place, trying to time when people are able to return to their community, and I’m very hopeful it will come back better than ever.”
The premier also she said she'd like temporary housing arranged for residents so they can live in the town while they rebuild their homes, noting that temporary housing was also used during the reconstruction of High River, Alta., after it suffered devastating floods back in 2013.
“So we have seen a precedent where you set up a temporary community that allows people to live on-site while rebuilding is occurring,” Smith told her radio audience, noting that nearby Hinton, Alta., may be relied on for construction workers.
Provincial wildfire officials said an estimated 17,100 Albertans are evacuated due to wildfires as of Saturday.
The province said there were 157 wildfires burning across Alberta, with 44 classified as out of control, 45 being held, and 68 under control.
Evacuation orders remain in effect for three communities of the Little Red River Cree Nation as well as Chipewyan Lake.
More support from Ontario, Quebec, Australia, and South Africa is expected to arrive Sunday, the province said.
