For more information on the destruction inside the Jasper townsite, read this story.
As flames raged through the mountain town of Jasper, officials believe between 30 and 50 per cent of the townsite may have been lost to the wildfire that burned its way into the community the night before.
Parks Canada said the most significant structural damage is concentrated on the west side of town, southwest of Miette Avenue.
The fire also damaged several bridges around the town and throughout the national park, including the Moberly Bridge and the Old Fort Point Bridge.
Parks Canada said bridges on the Icefields Parkway will need to be assessed for structural damage as well, which will slow down access to the Maligne Lake and Highway 93.
While she cautioned that it is too early to give accurate estimates, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith shared the grim news with reporters on Thursday morning.
“(We are seeing) horrific pictures and images,” Smith said as her voice trembled during a news conference where she was joined by other cabinet ministers and provincial emergency officials. “We will recover from this.”
On Wednesday night, officials confirmed the fire had impacted infrastructure.
Todd Loewen, Alberta’s minister of forestry and parks, called Wednesday a “truly heartbreaking day in our province’s history.”
“Words of any kind seem insufficient.”
Prior to officials confirming Wednesday evening that the wildfire had crept into the community located inside Jasper National Park, about 25,000 people had already left the park ever since an evacuation order was issued Monday night.
On Thursday, Jasper National Park officials provided an update on the situation and said they could confirm all residents, visitors and responders are safe.
Winds with gusts upwards of 100 kilometers an hour from the south and southeast caused the north and south fires to both spread towards Jasper and merge together. An updated size was not available.
With Thursday’s rain and cooler temperatures, fire activity is significantly subdued but the situation isn’t out of the woods yet.
“Jasper National Park received a small amount of rain overnight,” parks officials said. “While the rain helped reduce fire activity slightly, it is not enough to have made a meaningful impact to the overall wildfire situation, which remains out of control.
“Parks Canada, the Municipality of Jasper, and our partners from Alberta and across Canada are continuing to respond to this emergency. In Unified Command, Parks Canada and the Municipality of Jasper continue to manage this crisis from the Town of Hinton.”
Officials added that “significant structural firefighting reinforcements arrived throughout the night and have continued to assist with firefighting efforts in the community overnight and this morning.”
Parks Canada said firefighting efforts prevented significant damage to much of the infrastructure in the east end of town such as the hospital, emergency services building, both elementary and junior/senior schools, activity centre and wastewater treatment plant.
Mike Ellis, Alberta’s minister for public safety and emergency services, offered a harrowing account of what he was told firefighters faced as the flames entered the townsite.
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“That fire was about five kilometres out,” he said. “(Emergency officials have said) there was an enormous wind gust. That wind gust moved that fire five kilometres in probably less than 30 minutes with a wall of fire that was about 100 metres high.
“I think people need to picture what those wildfire folks were experiencing at that time … Any firefighter will tell you there’s little to nothing you can do when you have a wall of flames coming in like that. Kudos to those folks that were the heroes that stood their ground in order to fight that fire. Kudos to the folks who are the structural firefighters that were preparing for that fire to be coming.
“Nobody anticipated that fire to come so fast, so large and so quickly.”
At one point, the fire was moving 15 metres a minute, with flames jumping from treetop to treetop in what is known as a crown fire.
Pierre Martel, director of national fire management at Parks Canada, said there was no stopping it.
“It’s just a monster at that point. There (are) no tools we have in our toolbox, to deal with that at that point.”
“You get out of the way, you retreat, and you do what you can to protect communities and infrastructure as best as we can,” Martel said.
Parks Canada is leading the disaster response with help from other agencies, including Alberta Wildfire.
“The loss of (parts of) Jasper is felt by everybody in the wildfire family,” said Christie Tucker, a spokesperson for Alberta Wildfire. ‘”But we have a job to do… whatever it takes.”
Smith said Harjit Sajjan,the federal minister of emergency preparedness, was coming to Alberta later on Thursday and would be discussing how various levels of government can improve collaboration on the firefighting efforts.
Ellis noted that Sajjan and the federal government have been open to talking about that. Because the fires are burning within a national park, the federal agency Parks Canada is leading the response, although the Alberta government and other jurisdictions are assisting.
Smith noted she would like to see Alberta be part of the unified command structure in order to more easily and efficiently move firefighting resources into the park.
The Alberta government said Wednesday night that it has asked the federal government for aid from the Canadian military to deal with the provincial wildfire situation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded that his government is sending help.
“We’ve approved Alberta’s request for federal assistance,” he said. “We’re deploying Canadian Forces resources, evacuations support, and more emergency wildfire resources to the province immediately – and we’re coordinating firefighting and airlift assistance.
“Alberta, we’re with you.”
The mayor of the Municipality of Jasper extended “heartfelt sympathy and solidarity” to residents after the wildfire entered the popular tourist town.
“The news this evening that the fire has entered our town has rocked us all,” Richard Ireland wrote in a Facebook post shortly before midnight local time Wednesday. “The pain and heartache that you feel is shared by each one of us.
“Please know that my thoughts are with all of you during this incredibly difficult time.”
Ireland, Smith and Ellis all spoke at length about the bravery shown by firefighters and other personnel working within the national park’s borders.
The company that owns the iconic Jasper Park Lodge resort, located across the Athabasca River from the townsite, confirmed the fire had reached its grounds and caused some damage.
However, on Thursday afternoon Fairmont said most of the JPL’s buildings — including the iconic main lodge — remain standing and intact.
“While we will need time to assess the fill scale of the damage and the timelines required for repair and restoration, we’re deeply relieved that much of the property was spared and the resort will reopen in the future,” a statement said.
The same can’t be said for some hotels in town. The company that owns the Maligne Lodge confirmed the hotel had been destroyed by flames.
“Sadly, we lost our beloved hotel The Maligne Lodge this evening,” said Karyn Decore, president and CEO of Decore Hotels.
“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.”
As the wildfire raged closer to the Jasper townsite on Wednesday afternoon, some first responders were forced to leave because it had become too dangerous to stay.
Parks Canada officials said the air quality had deteriorated to the point that wildland firefighters and others without self-contained breathing apparatuses needed to leave.
Wildfire management expert discusses challenge of responding to emergencies
While the fire in Jasper National Park falls under Parks Canada’s jurisdiction, the collaboration and co-ordination with other authorities — as has been happening in Jasper — is vital, according to Eric Kennedy, an associate professor at York University who specializes in wildfire management and emergency management.
“When it comes to a fire of this size and this kind of intensity with the community impact, it always involves a lot of mutual aid and a lot of collaboration,” he told Motorcycle accident toronto today on Thursday.
Kennedy said while the focus right now needs to be on the firefight at hand and the preservation of life and then property, authorities face a number of growing challenges, including keeping up with funding fire mitigation and management strategies.
“The other thing that makes this challenging is that as we see climates changing, that can also reduce the window that’s available for things like prescribed fire, which help to mitigate the risk ahead of time,” he said. “And so it becomes more logistically complex to do the risk reduction that we need to do.
“This is absolutely an area where we need more investment at local, provincial and federal levels of government. We need more sustained effort in these mitigation phases to prevent us from getting into these kinds of potentially tragic fires.
“There will be important questions to ask, and having critical scrutiny after an emergency or disaster is really important. But during the heat of the moment, it’s also important that we focus our attention and efforts on what really matters. The fire management crews are giving their all on the ground right now and it will take some time for details to emerge.”
When asked on Thursday about her government’s level of funding for fighting and wildfires and mitigating the risk of disasters, Smith said “there is no limit to the amount of money we will spend to make sure we have the resources we need.”
“We have looked at the lessons of the past and made the appropriate amount of investment.”
Updates on provincial wildfire situation on Alberta
Tucker said Thursday morning there are currently 176 wildfires burning in forest protection areas across Alberta. Of those, 54 are out of control.
She said while firefighters are welcoming the rain being seen in some parts of the northern half of Alberta, the wildfire danger remains “extreme” in many areas.
Tucker added strong winds in recent days have caused challenges for firefighters.
She said more firefighting help is coming from overseas to help Alberta in the coming days, joining Australian firefighters who have already arrived to help in the province.
One-hundred firefighters were expected to arrive from Mexico later in the day, 200 were expected to arrive from South Africa on Friday and 100 additional firefighters are expected to arrive from Australia and New Zealand on Sunday and Monday.
Tucker said final decisions on exactly where the firefighters will be deployed have yet to be confirmed.
For the latest information on which areas in Alberta are under an evacuation alert or order due to a wildfire, visit the Alberta Emergency Alert website.
For the latest information on the wildfire status and danger across the province, visit the Alberta Wildfire website.
The latest information on fire advisories, restrictions and bans across the province can be found on the Alberta fire bans website.
For the latest on road closures in Alberta, you can visit the 511 Alberta website.
— with files from Karen Bartko, Motorcycle accident toronto today