Record dryness, extreme heat, high winds, and a lightning storm. This summer in Jasper National Park, all of the ingredients of a recipe for disaster were in place.
Now, two and a half months after that disaster came to pass, another set of circumstances—misinformation, toxic politics and facts-starved social media blowhards, desperately looking to pin blame— have lined up to wreak havoc.
On July 22, 2024, after bolts of lightning ignited three sparks which blew up into fast-moving wildfires 30km south of Jasper, Initial Attack firefighting crews radioed Parks Canada Incident Command.
On top of another fire that sprang to life north of town, the news from the south wasn’t good.
“All three fires were already well into the crowns,” Parks Canada fire specialist Landon Shepherd learned.
As the national park teemed with visitors, the forecast was for more heat and wind. Since the 1960s, when weather records in JNP started, July 22 showed the driest fuels ever recorded in the park. Meanwhile, tornados were being reported all over B.C. and Alberta.
“Conditions were unprecedented,” Shepherd said.
What wasn’t unprecedented, was collaborating with his fellow wildfire specialists. And so as soon as he had a handle on the gravity of the wildfire situation, Shepherd picked up the phone and called Gord Glover.
Gord Glover isn’t a federal official. He’s not an Ottawa bureaucrat, nor a politician. Glover is an Operations Officer with Alberta Wildfire, based out of Edson.
Last year, when Edson was under threat of being impinged by fast-running wildfires south of the community, Shepherd was one of Glover’s first calls.
“They know to call us when their backs are up against the wall,” Shepherd said.
On July 22, it was Jasper’s back which was up against the wall. On Shepherd’s behalf, Glover scoured the province for air tankers. But there were fires burning all over Alberta, chewing up many of the province’s wildfire resources. If Alberta’s aircraft weren’t already engaged, Glover was finding they were grounded, due to smoke.
“Alberta was overwhelmed,” Shepherd said.
Even so, Alberta Wildfire sent what they could. Parkland and Yellowhead Counties roared in to help. Banff showed up. Ontario was sending teams. Yukon sent ignition specialists. From B.C., Quesnel was on their way. Valemount, Tete Jaune and McBride—who were under an evacuation alert of their own—sent engines. And many private contractors—running helicopters and heavy equipment—were used.
Jasper said yes. To resources. To help. They said yes early and they said yes often. They said yes to wildland teams and they said yes to municipal departments.
“We kept saying yes,” Shepherd said.
But they didn’t say yes to everyone.
Unified Command did not immediately say yes to Arctic Fire Safety Services, an Alberta-based independent business seeking access to Jasper to perform structural protection services for a private company. While two trucks and seven personnel that travelled to Jasper on July 23, 2024, were utilized to meet incident objectives, additional Arctic Fire Safety Services resources which arrived after most of the structural losses occurred were not initially granted access because they had not made prior arrangements. Arctic Fire Safety Services disputes this, stating that it was in active communication with Parks Canada’s Incident Command Liaison Officer prior to mobilizing to facilitate access to the properties it was retained to assist. AFSS also states that its team entered Jasper with permission from the Incident Command Laison Officer on July 25.
Parks Canada and the Municipality of Jasper released a statement saying that additional Arctic Fire Safety Services resources arrived in Hinton on the morning of July 25, 2024, seeking access to Jasper to perform structural protection services for a private company. According to the statement, the July 25 Arctic Fire Safety Services resources had not made prior arrangements for access to Jasper National Park. Unified Command granted access to Arctic Fire Safety Services later the same day with a verbal agreement in place, followed by written rules of engagement.
“We can’t just have rogue agents patrolling around,” Shepherd explained. “It’s too dangerous. What if they get in the way of wildfire operations we’re doing?”
Recently, Arctic Fire Safety Services has popped back up. And although the fires in Jasper have long been put out, confusion about what resources were needed, and when, is creating controversy.
This week Arctic Fire Safety Services president Kris Liivam stated to a parliamentary committee that his crews were obstructed from doing their jobs by Jasper’s Unified Command. That testimony is being weaponized by opposition MPs and social media warriors alike.
The negative rhetoric is wearing on locals, many of whom were involved in the incident, and many others who lost their homes and livelihoods to fire and desperately want fact-based answers.
Even Jasper’s Mayor, now well-known to Canadians for his diplomacy, fortitude and tact, weighed in on the scuttlebutt.
“The present atmosphere of finger pointing, blaming and misinformation is beyond merely an annoying distraction, it delays healing,” Richard Ireland said on Thursday, October 10. “It introduces fresh wounds at a time when we need recovery and unity.”
Extreme atmospheric conditions and instability, combined with unprecedented dry fuel conditions meant that Jasper firefighters weren’t in a fair fight on July 22.
But the people authorized to be involved in the battle gave it everything they had.
Jasper has taken some big punches. But if we’re going to get up from the mat, we first need to know we’re in each others’ corner.
We’ll need to trust each other. We’ll need to band together.
July 22 had all the ingredients for an unprecedented disaster.
But if we can put politics aside and filter out good information from bad, Jasper—the town and the park—has all the right ingredients to make its rebuild unprecedented, too.
CORRECTION
A previous version of the article stated that AFSS was denied access to Jasper. In fact, one AFSS team was allowed in Jasper while the other was delayed access. This article has been updated. The Jasper Local apologizes to AFSS for any harm this has caused.
Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
