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'Significant loss': Wildfire roars in Jasper as first responders ordered to leave

Wildfire hits town of Jasper

The Canadian Press - Jul 24, 2024 / 9:27 pm | Story: 498410

UPDATE 9:25 p.m.

Parks Canada says firefighters continue to battle to save as many structures as possible in the Jasper townsite.

“Today has been an exceptionally difficult day for Jasperites, incident personnel and everyone who loves Jasper,” said the agency.

Crews working to save homes, businesses and critical infrastructure will be supported by “many more” structural firefighters en route to the community.

“As the pictures and videos circulating online show, significant loss has occurred within the townsite,” Parks Canada said.

“We are sensitive that residents, business owners, visitors and those with connections to Jasper want to know the state of their homes, businesses, treasures and favourite places.”

Information about the extent of damage to specific locations or neighbourhoods is not available while crews focus on saving as many structures as possible.

“We are grateful for the support, encouragement, care and kind words we have received from all over the country and world.” No additional updates are expected from Parks Canada this evening.

The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, in a statement, confirmed that the flames have reached the hotel’s property, but the extent of damage is unclear.

“At this time, we know parts of the resort remain untouched,” the resort said, thanking first responders for their efforts.

Photos of the Maligne Lodge are circulating widely, showing the hotel in flames.

Decore Hotels president Karyn Decore confirmed the loss of the hotel on Instagram."It was proudly owned and operated by our family since 1961. We are so devastated and we are also so sad for all the other business owners, operators, residents and wonderful people who call Jasper home."

Jasper is under attack by fires from the north and south, and the town’s 5,000 residents -- along with 20,000 park visitors -- have already left.

The northern fire was spotted five kilometres from Jasper earlier Wednesday.

The southern fire had been reported eight kilometres distant from the town, but Katie Ellsworth, with Parks Canada, said strong wind gusts swooping in behind it sent it racing.

Everything that could go wrong earlier Wednesday did go wrong.

Fire perimeters changed minute by minute.

Ellsworth said bucketing efforts by helicopter failed.

Crews using heavy equipment to build fireguards couldn’t complete the work before having to pull back for safety.

Water bombers couldn’t help due to dangerous flying conditions.

A last-ditch effort to use controlled burns to reroute the fire to natural barriers like Highway 16 and the Athabasca River failed due to “unfavourable conditions.”

The hope was that up to 20 mm of rain, forecast to begin falling in the area later Wednesday night, would bring some relief.

Alberta Forestry Minister Todd Loewen has asked the Canadian Armed Forces for help.

"We are requesting firefighting resources, aerial support to move wildfire crews and equipment and more," Loewen wrote on the social media platform X.

UPDATE 7:50 p.m.

Wildland firefighters and anyone else without self contained breathing apparatuses have now been evacuated from Jasper.

Park Canada says that everyone with the exception of structural firefighters were ordered at 8:30 p.m. MST to evacuate to Hinton due to toxic air quality.

“Structural firefighters remain in town and are working to save as many structures as possible and to protect critical infrastructure, including the wastewater treatment plant, communications facilities, the Trans Mountain Pipeline and others,” said the statement.

Additional structural protection crews are en route, Parks Canada said.

“Our hearts go out to all of the affected community members, their families and their friends, many of which include our local first responders.”

UPDATE: 6:53 p.m.

One of two raging, wind-whipped wildfires bearing down on the historic Jasper townsite reached its southern outskirts early Wednesday night as a last-ditch attempt to reroute it failed.

Around the same time, all first responders were ordered out of Jasper National Park for their safety and to give fire crews more room to operate.

Firefighters remained in the town to douse spot fires and maintain sprinkler lines. Everyone else was reminded to get out.

“If you have not yet evacuated town you must leave now,” Katie Ellsworth, with Parks Canada, said in a statement posted on Facebook.

“Our hearts go out to all of the affected community members, their families and their friends, many of which include our local first responders.”

The northern fire was spotted five kilometres from Jasper earlier in the day.

The southern fire had been reported eight kilometres distant from the town, but Ellsworth said strong wind gusts swooping in behind it sent it racing.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong as fire perimeters changed minute by minute.

Ellsworth said bucketing efforts by helicopter failed.

Crews using heavy equipment to build fireguards couldn’t complete the work before having to pull back for safety.

Water bombers couldn’t help due to dangerous flying conditions.

A last-ditch effort to use controlled burns to reroute the fire to natural barriers like Highway 16 and the Athabasca River failed due to “unfavourable conditions.”

The hope was that up to 20 mm of rain, forecast to begin falling in the area later Wednesday night, would bring some relief.

Ellsworth said the decision to relocate all first responders to the town of Hinton, just outside the eastern edge of the park, “has not been made lightly.”

She said, “Given the intensity of fire behaviour being observed the decision has been made to limit the number of responders exposed to this risk.”

Alberta Forestry Minister Todd Loewen asked the Canadian Armed Forces for help.

"We are requesting firefighting resources, aerial support to move wildfire crews and equipment and more," Loewen wrote on the social media platform X.

About 5,000 people live in Jasper. They, along with about 20,000 park visitors had to flee on a moment’s notice Monday night when the fires flared up.

The order to go went out around 10 p.m. Monday as fires cut off road access to the Jasper townsite from the east and the south, forcing evacuees to drive west into British Columbia in a long, slow midnight cavalcade through swirling smoke, soot and ash.

The following day, evacuees in B.C. who didn’t have a place to stay were directed to make a long, looping U-turn around the fires back to Alberta to evacuation centres in Grande Prairie and Calgary.

B.C., dealing with its own multiple wildfires and evacuees, did not have the capacity to help Alberta, officials said.

At the Grande Prairie evacuation centre, Addison McNeill recalled literally just arriving in Jasper when she was told to get out.

McNeill said she had just put her bags down after moving from Edmonton for her new job as a line cook when she got an alert on her phone that she needed to leave immediately.

"I moved there two hours before the evacuation notice," said the 24-year-old in an interview.

McNeill said went to a nearby hotel, one of two meet-up points for those without transportation. She hopped in a recreational vehicle with others and headed out — at a snail's pace.

"Every single person in town was beelining to one exit from about six different routes and so you get bottleneck, backups and congestion,” she said.

McNeill said as she sat inside the vehicle, she felt so close to the wildfires that the windows seemed like they were going to shatter from the pressure of the red, hot, smoky air.

She saw acts of kindness amid the swirling ash: neighbours loaning their cars to those without; people knocking on doors to see if everyone inside was OK.

"It was far from a panic," she said.

Jasper National Park, the largest in the Canadian Rockies, is considered a national and international treasure.

The United Nations designated the parks that make up the Canadian Rockies, including Jasper, a World Heritage Site in 1984 for its striking mountain landscape.

It has hosted glitz and glitter. In 1953, Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe visited to make the movie "River of No Return." More recently, the TV show "The Bachelorette" was filmed there.

Jasper is famous for hiking, skiing, kayaking and biking.

It is also home to dozens of species such as elk, mountain goats, cougars, lynx, black bears and grizzly bears.

UPDATE 6:30 p.m.

Parks officials say one of two wildfires bearing down on the Jasper, Alta., townsite has reached the community.

All first responders have been ordered out of Jasper National Park for their safety and to give fire crews more room to operate.

Two fires whipped by strong winds are bearing down on the town, from the north and the south.

Katie Ellsworth, with Parks Canada, said the southern one reached the outskirts of the townsite just before 6 p.m.

"Firefighters remain in town combating multiple structural fires and are working to protect critical infrastructure," said Parks Canada on X.

A last-ditch effort to reroute the fire to natural barriers like Highway 16 and the Athabasca River failed.

About 5,000 live in Jasper, and they, along with about 20,000 visitors, had to flee at a moment’s notice Monday night when the fires flared up.

UPDATE 4:15 p.m.

Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter / The Rocky Mountain Goat

The south fire in Jasper National Park has grown over 4,000 hectares since yesterday evening, now totalling at least 10,800 hectares. It is roughly eight kilometres away from the Town of Jasper, according to Incident Commander Katie Ellsworth.

The north fire, which is about five kilometres away from town, is still about 270 hectares.

Rain is forecasted for this evening and into Thursday morning. Ellsworth says commanders anticipate a reduction in fire activity if Jasper does receive precipitation, but gusty conditions mean the fire will likely grow before then.

Ellsworth confirmed to media that the town has not been impacted by fire. She added that there is no timeline for re-entry, including for temporary visits to gather items that evacuees left behind.

"We understand that this is stressful. We do ask for your patience, and we will provide you with a timeline (once) you are able to return to retrieve the items that you may have left behind," Ellsworth said.

In a Facebook post this afternoon, the Municipality of Jasper encouraged evacuees to prepare to stay elsewhere. They advise evacuees to make arrangements with friends or family if possible, or go to reception centres in Edmonton, Calgary, or Grande Prairie. Additionally, free camping for evacuees is available at Buck Lake in the County of Wetaskiwin, and at the Dr. Duncan Murray Recreation Centre Field in the Town of Hinton.

The Municipality also advises residents and business owners to call their insurance provider as soon as possible, and apply for Employment Insurance using their temporary address.

The status of structures outside of town – such as the Palisades Centre, Caribou Recovery Centre, and the HI Athabasca Falls Wilderness Hostel – is unknown at this time. Heavy smoke and aggressive fire behavior have made it unsafe for responders to access these structures, according to Ellsworth.

“In terms of the Palisades Centre, we can confirm that it has been impacted. Because of the fire behavior yesterday, we don’t know the extent of those impacts,” Ellsworth said. “We are hoping to be able to confirm those impacts as soon as we can, so that we can share that information both to the public and the business owners. But we do ask for your continued patience.”

Firefighters are taking steps to protect the town’s infrastructure in case the southern fire continues to move northward. This includes the installation of high-volume sprinklers on the south side of the Parks Canada compound, and around the southwest perimeter of town from Patricia Place to the entrance of Stone Mountain Village. Sprinklers will also be installed around Pyramid Bench from west to east. Additionally, firefighters are removing combustible material and dry vegetation from town today, Ellsworth added.

Ellsworth asks that the public look to Parks Canada, the Municipality of Jasper, and Alberta Wildfire for accurate information on the fire, rather than using other resources like NASA’s MODIS and FIRMS satellite imagery.

“At this time due to heavy, thick smoke conditions in Jasper, we cannot confirm the MODIS or FIRMS hits that you can see if you’re looking at the satellite imagery,” she said. “These satellites do indicate heat registers, and it’s not uncommon after a fairly aggressive burning day when things calm down for that heat to sink back down to the surface and be registered as a fire point.”

Alert hiccups

Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland, who also attended the press conference, thanked Jasper residents and visitors for their cooperation during the evacuation. However, he said he received reports this morning that the alert system used by the municipality did not work as intended.

“We gave out an emergency alert on our system – we use something called Voyent,” he told journalists. “It has come to my attention that some subscribers to that service did not receive the messages that we thought that they had received.”

Ireland added that the Alberta Emergency Alerts system worked as expected.

The glitch that caused the error has been fixed since the municipality learned of it earlier this morning, according to Ireland.

“All of these incidents undergo an after-action debrief. The whole system will be reviewed and we will see whether any corrections have to be made to prevent this happening, either in our location or other locations with the same sorts of mass alert systems,” he said.

Highway 16 partially cleared

According to Drive BC, about 350 kilometres of Highway 16 has been cleared between Victoria Street and the B.C.-Alberta border, as of 11:01 a.m. today. There is still limited visibility due to smoke from 16 kilometres east of Tete Jaune to the Alberta border.

Highway 16 eastbound is closed from the Mount Robson Visitor Centre to the Alberta border. The westbound lane is open only for evacuation purposes. Drive BC anticipates an update to Highway 16 at 4:30 p.m. today.

UPDATE 12:25 p.m.

Fuelled by whipping winds, fires in Jasper National Park are edging closer from two directions to the historic Rocky Mountain townsite of Jasper.

Parks Canada says a wildfire to the north is five kilometres away while another approaching from the south is eight kilometres distant.

No critical infrastructure in Jasper has been damaged, and crews are scrambling to protect the homes of almost 5,000 residents by bulldozing a fireguard on the southern edge, clearing flammables house-by-house, and installing massive sprinkler systems.

Parks Canada official Katie Ellsworth says windy conditions are making things worse, and says the southern blaze has doubled in size to more than 100 square kilometres.

Officials say they can’t accurately update what’s happening to infrastructure outside the townsite, such as picnic areas or power lines, because of smoky conditions.

About 25,000 people, including residents and visitors, were forced to flee Jasper National Park earlier this week ahead of the fires.

The Canadian Press

ORIGINAL 5:45 a.m.

Some wildfire evacuees who were trapped in traffic for hours while leaving Jasper National Park say they are feeling relieved to have found safety.

Addison McNeill, who is 24, says she felt stressed when she got an alert on Monday night to evacuate Jasper about two hours after she moved to the alpine town from Edmonton.

When she got on the road, she says she saw many of Jasper's 4,700 residents exiting the town calmly along with visitors despite being trapped in gridlock and hot, smoky air for hours.

Evacuees were initially ordered to go to British Columbia but were directed on Tuesday to make a wide U-turn as that province was dealing with its own wildfires.

Since then, reception centres have been set up north of Jasper in Grande Prairie as well as in Calgary and Edmonton, where evacuees are being helped with accommodations.

Jasper resident Leanne Maeva Joyeuse says she feels relieved to have made it to Grande Prairie after having been on the road for nearly 20 hours but she is worried about how the wildfires will affect her town.

The Canadian Press

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