What Jasper can teach us about managing wildfires

This episode discusses the recent wildfires in Jasper National Park, examining the destruction they caused, the efforts made to prevent them, and what lessons can be learned for future wildfire management.

1. The wildfires in Jasper destroyed about 30% of the town, with residential areas being the most affected.
2. Despite extensive preventive efforts like fuel reduction, the fire's intensity, driven by high winds, overwhelmed defenses.
3. Fuel management strategies are crucial in mitigating the severity of wildfires, although they may not always be sufficient under extreme conditions.
4. Effective evacuation planning is essential for community safety during wildfires.
5. The resilience of Jasper's community offers hope for recovery and rebuilding after such disasters.

1: Mel Thompson's Evacuation Story

Mel Thompson recounts the harrowing experience of evacuating Jasper during the wildfires, highlighting the quick spread of the fire and the challenges faced by residents.

• "We were all just done like, it was just pushed as hard as we could to get out of there." - Mel Thompson

2: The Impact on Jasper

Reporters Carrie Tait and Nancy McDonald discuss the extent of the damage in Jasper and the emotional response of the community to the devastation.

• "About 350 structures were lost, most of those were residential." - Carrie Tait

3: The Science Behind the Fire

Dr. Jen Beverley explains the factors contributing to the wildfire's severity and the role of fuel management in wildfire prevention.

• "There's a lot of fuel in and around Jasper... it’s really the only thing that we can manage." - Dr. Jen Beverley

4: Evaluating Fire Prevention Efforts

A deeper look into the effectiveness of the fire prevention strategies employed in Jasper, and the challenges of combating wildfires under extreme conditions.

• "Those treatments are intended to modify the fire behavior so that it is less of a threat." - Dr. Jen Beverley

5: Lessons for the Future

Discussion on the broader implications of Jasper’s experience and what other communities can learn to better prepare for wildfires.

• "We can't just rely on suppression to protect communities." - Dr. Jen Beverley

1. Implement Fuel Management: Regularly thin trees and remove lower limbs around your property to reduce the risk of fire spreading.
2. Create Defensible Space: Ensure there is a clear area around your home free of flammable materials to slow down a potential wildfire.
3. Use Fire-Resistant Materials: Build or renovate homes using fire-resistant materials to reduce the likelihood of ignition.
4. Develop an Evacuation Plan: Have a clear, practiced evacuation plan for your family in case of a wildfire.
5. Stay Informed: Regularly check for updates from local authorities during fire season to stay ahead of potential dangers.
6. Prepare an Emergency Kit: Keep an emergency kit with essentials like water, food, and first aid supplies in an easily accessible location.
7. Community Involvement: Engage with local FireSmart initiatives and participate in community wildfire preparedness programs.
8. Regular Property Maintenance: Clean your yard, remove debris, and clear gutters to minimize flammable materials around your home.
9. Support Local Efforts: Volunteer or support local wildfire prevention efforts to help build a more resilient community.
10. Educate Yourself: Learn more about wildfire behavior and prevention strategies to protect yourself and your property.

Last week, wildfires tore through the town of Jasper, Alta., and the surrounding national park. Around 30 per cent of the town was destroyed, but some are saying that it could have been much worse.

Today, we’re speaking with Globe reporters Carrie Tait and Nancy Macdonald about what’s left of Jasper, how residents are doing, and how the fire became so destructive. Then we’ll speak with Jen Beverly, a wildfire researcher at the University of Alberta, about Jasper’s fire prevention efforts in the years leading up to this, and how communities can help protect themselves from wildfire.

People

Carrie Tait, Nancy McDonald, Mel Thompson, Dr. Jen Beverley

Companies

Parks Canada

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

Dr. Jen Beverley

Content Warnings:

None

Vas Bednar
Welcome to lately a new Globe and Mail podcast. I'm Vas Bednar and every Friday I'm going to be having a conversation about big defining trends in business and technology that are reshaping our everyday find lately. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Mel Thompson
Monday night was another regular day. We had finished up the supper with the guests and I just went about my usual evening and I was getting ready to call it a night and I laid on my bed and ten minutes later my coworker knocked on the door and she said, I think there's a fire.

Manica Raymond Willms
Mel Thompson is a seasonal camp worker. She was finishing a shift at the Shovel Pass lodge in Jasper National park.

Mel Thompson
Yeah, by 08:00 there was already big smoke and the sky was just filling big plumes of smoke and everything. And I think it was about 09:00 we got an alert for just Jasper to evacuate. So we just started getting ready and stuff just in case. And by 930 we got an alert for the park to evacuate. So we went and notified, we had ten guests. We notified all of them and we all agreed that we were going to go up. And I'm unfamiliar with the area. I'm not a hiker by any means.

Manica Raymond Willms
The lodge Mel worked at isn't accessible by road, so in order to get to safety, they'd have to hike out.

Mel Thompson
We left at about 10:00 that night and we didn't get out of the park till 530 that morning.

On the way down we alerted three campgrounds that none of them, nobody in those campgrounds were even aware of what was going on. So we got everybody out there and then we went through a big meadow on the last incline and it was just, I had to talk myself into it. It was just, it was, my legs were done and they were cramping. But I, before I left, I grabbed a bottle of water and some juice boxes. So I drank those and I was okay after that. And it's just like, I'm in okay shape. But it was, I was, that's, yeah, you're not expecting a 20 kilometer hike out and with just headlamps and up mountain ridges and through rain and stuff. And then, yeah, I think the last campground that we stopped in was 5 miles out before the trail hit.

We were all just done like, it was just pushed as hard as we could to get out of there. And then you get to the bottom and I'm not from there. I don't know anybody. I didn't of all times, I didn't take my truck with me.

So I'm worrying about a ride to get out of there. There's no cell service and there were people offering to drive other some of our hikers to their vehicles in different lots and stuff. So that was good. And there were a few people that offered me a ride and just told me that we'll figure something out.

Manica Raymond Willms
Everyone was able to get out of the park. Mel got a lift to Hinton, a nearby town.

Mel Thompson
As we were driving both sides of the highway were just burnt right out and all black and still smoldering in some places. Some trees were still burning in parts of the ground so it was a long, long day.

Manica Raymond Willms
That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday flames tore through the town of Jasper.

About 30% of the town was destroyed.

Today were talking to Globe reporters Carrie Tate and Nancy McDonald whove been covering the fires. Well talk about the state of Jasper, how residents are doing and how this fire became so destructive.

Then well speak with doctor Jen Beverley, a wildfire researcher from the University of Alberta.

She'll help us understand Jasper's fire prevention efforts in the years leading up to this and what communities can do to help protect themselves from wildfire.

I'm Manica Raymond Willms and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail.

Carrie, Nancy, thank you both so much for being here.

Carrie Tait
Thank you for having me.

Nancy McDonald
Yeah, thanks for having us.

Manica Raymond Willms
Carrie, I know that you were actually in Jasper this past weekend. What was it like there?

Carrie Tait
Yeah I was on the media tour in Jasper on Sunday and it's really tricky to describe because the officials kept us away from the residential areas where the most damage was done. They didn't want images of people's burned out homes surfacing on the Internet or on news stories prior to people seeing them with their own eyes. So we saw some of the downtown that was burned and it's not as severe there but there are about 350 structures that were lost. Most of those were residential and so most of the downtown is intact. There will be smoke and water damage that we can't see.

But Jasper, the town excluding the residential areas still looks like Jasper. And you can see that they have what they need to rebuild and I think as Premier Daniel Smith describes it bring that Jasper magic back.

Manica Raymond Willms
And you said it's about 350 structures or so that were lost. Do we have a sense I guess how much that represents? Within the town of Jasper it's about.

Carrie Tait
30% of the town. Again most of those are residential. Now there are chunks of the downtown that are missing like row storefronts that have been torn down or burned down and that was in part they tore some of those down on purpose to prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings. But of course there's also, you know, notable chunks of downtown missing. The Mount Robson Inn and the adjacent cafe. That part, those are kind of flattened. The anglican church, what remains of it is basically the fieldstone that they used to build the foundation.

Manica Raymond Willms
Yeah, Nancy, let me bring you into this too. You've been in Valmont in BC, which is where a lot of the residents from Jasper actually evacuated too.

So Nancy, what are you hearing from people who left Jasper? What have they told you?

Nancy McDonald
Yeah, so I was in Valemont, which is about an hour west of Jasper and that's where a lot of jasperites headed the night they were evacuated. I mean, I think the first night people were devastated. I was at a brewery and it felt like a funeral. There were tears, people hugging.

You could see people looking at their phones. And I think a lot of people in Jasper have relatives who work for parks.

Manica Raymond Willms
That's parks like Parks Canada.

Nancy McDonald
Parks Canada, yeah. So they were getting texts from either relatives or friends who work for parks saying the firefighters are pulling out. And, you know, everyone knew what that meant. And then a little while later someone got a message that the gas station had blown up.

The sense was that first night that everything was lost, that they were going to wake up to the entire town gone. The reality is that the school survived, the waterworks survived, the hospitals survived. You know, what people have said to me is, you know, that's the basis of a town right there.

We can rebuild. So, you know, I think I. People are devastated, but there's some sense of resolve that, you know, we can keep going. You know, the town isn't lost so there's hope, I guess, is what I was hearing.

Manica Raymond Willms
Yeah, that's. I mean, it's good to hear that. There's a bit of a hopeful feeling now, I guess. Can I ask, are there any particularly memorable stories that you've heard from people?

Nancy McDonald
Oh boy.

Valmont is so small that there's no clothing store. So a lot of people had left in the middle of a heat wave in shorts and sandals. But the next day it was twelve above. People didn't have jeans, they didn't have jackets. So the anglican church opened a thrift store offering clothes free to evacuees. And I spoke with the minister there and she said she had this moment in the morning where she looked up and she could see this woman who was almost afraid to enter the church. And this woman said to the minister, you know, I realize that I'm about to start this new chapter in my life. I've got nothing. I'm restarting. And so she was, I guess, feeling anxious about, you know, taking this step and starting over. So the minister grabbed her in a hug and they walked it together.

Manica Raymond Willms
Kerry, before I let you go here, I believe you've also been talking to firefighters and officials there. What have they told you about the behavior of the fire? Like, I guess, what happened that led to this level of destruction.

Carrie Tait
So firefighters estimate that the wind that evening was between 100 an hour, and that's just something that they can't compete with. So you've got the wildfire from the south coming up very, very, very hot, burning in the crown and moving very fast. And that's where sort of the second part of the fire takes over. And that's when the wind generated embers and it rained embers in town.

The wall of fire, the forest fire, didn't necessarily breach town. It was the embers that jumped in and, you know, would land on a roof and ignite buildings and then spread that way. Highway 16 runs east west through the park. That sort of connects from where I am in Hinton to where Nancy was in Valmont on the south side of the highway.

You can see that the fire burned very, very, very hot. It's black, charred. And it was moving in the crown there, moving up on the treetops on the north side, closest to town, the fire dropped to the ground. And that was because they had thinned out those trees and it had a different mix, the types of trees. And so that actually reduce the intensity of the fire as it approached town.

Manica Raymond Willms
And do we know what is the status of the fire right now?

Carrie Tait
Right now, the north fire, there's still a fire to the north. They are still worried that it threatens the community.

It's going to depend on the weather and the wind. But you can still see them bucketing with helicopters in around the community. There's still hot spots on the mountains. You can still see swirls of smoke coming out of forested spots in the mountains. So they have the sense that the worst is over, but there's still a nervousness that things could turn. Yeah.

Manica Raymond Willms
Carrie, Nancy, thank you both so much for taking the time to be here.

Nancy McDonald
Thanks for having us.

Carrie Tait
Thanks for having me.

Manica Raymond Willms
We'll be back after this message.

Vas Bednar
Welcome to Lately, a new Globe and Mail podcast that's all about navigating life in the new economy. I'm your host, Bastner.

Every Friday I'm going to be having a conversation, maybe even a raucous one about big defining trends in business and technology that are reshaping our everyday. It's about the innovations that are changing our world, whether you've noticed them yet or not. Join us for the latest on lately wherever you get your podcasts.

Manica Raymond Willms
As Carrie said, there's been extensive work to protect Jasper from wildfires and doctor Jen Beverly has been following those efforts for years.

She's an associate professor in the department of renewable resources at the University of Alberta. She studies wildfires and used to be a firefighter herself and a researcher with the Canadian Forest Service.

Jen, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jen Beverley
Happy to be here.

Manica Raymond Willms
One of your areas of research is how communities are vulnerable to wildfires. So Jen, what did you learn about Jasper in particular?

Jen Beverley
Yeah, well, you know, Jasper was included in a study that I did with a PhD student in my lab, Air Forbes. Last year we published a study. Jasper was actually ranked number three in the province in terms of its direction, what we call directional vulnerability, which means there's quite a few different directions from which fire can encroach on the community.

And there's three kind of main valleys that serve as these pathways that basically channel fire towards the town. So yeah, it's a very vulnerable community. It's long been recognized as a vulnerable community and there's just a lot of fuel in the surrounding valleys that can carry a fire.

Manica Raymond Willms
And when you say fuel, can you just remind us what exactly are you referring to there?

Jen Beverley
Different species are more or less flammable. The fuels that are most concerning when it comes to fire behavior are conifer fuels. So those are the fuels, the trees that have needles, so spruce and pine and they burn really, really well.

All those little needles, those fine fuels, provide a lot of fuel for the fire.

Manica Raymond Willms
And so when we look at Jasper, what is the fuel load like? Or I guess if we look at last week, what would you have said the fuel load is like around the town?

Jen Beverley
Well, there's a lot of fuel in and around Jasper.

There's been efforts to manage that fuel with firesmart fuel reduction treatments and prescribed burning. FireSmart is a national FireSmart Canada operates nationally and gives basically direction and advice on how you can reduce the threat of wildfire in different ways. And vegetation management is one of them.

And it has been ongoing. Like Parks Canada has been looking at that fuel management firesmart, both at the landscape and in and around the community for many years and has been working towards managing those fuels. So the fuels are a huge factor and it's really the only thing that we can manage because we can't alter the weather and we can't determine where lightning is going to strike, but we can manage the fuels proactively.

Manica Raymond Willms
So you mentioned Jasper's kind of in the confluence of these three valleys. I guess knowing that. Knowing what you know about Jasper, when you were hearing this news of the fire last week, what were you thinking?

Jen Beverley
You know, obviously the first thing I did was went to the assessment that we had done for Jasper. And you could see that the winds were coming predominantly from the south southwest. And that is aligned with one of these pathways into town. And then there was also a fire just to the north, a bit to the northeast, and there was another pathway there. So, you know, obviously I was really, really concerned as soon as I saw the locations of those fires within one of these pathways. Well, two of the pathways we had previously mapped. And so all you needed was a somewhat southerly wind to push that south fire into town in particular.

Manica Raymond Willms
And we've been hearing there was quite a bit of wind happening there.

Jen Beverley
Right. And so under extreme wind conditions, when you have one of very dry, low relative humidities, high temperatures, these conditions result in explosive fire behavior. And once a fire gets going and you've got that connected fuels, it's going to continue to burn until there's some kind of change in conditions. It could be a little precipitation, which is what happened, or a change in the wind direction, for example. But there's not much you can do from a firefighting perspective. Once a fire is burning at those intensities, that it's not going to be responsive to water bombers. And you certainly can't have crews directly fighting the flames on the ground. It's too intense. So in those cases, you have to get people out of harm's way, and that's what they did.

Manica Raymond Willms
Jen, you mentioned the fire prevention efforts, so let's talk a little bit more about that because this is stuff that we can do in advance. Obviously, Parks Canada and the municipality of Jasper have made efforts over the years to do this. Can you walk me through the efforts here?

Jen Beverley
Sure. So, you know, those treatments can involve different types of reducing the fuels, fuel reduction treatments.

And they can also involve attempts to convert fuels to a totally different type. You know, maybe trying to create more open areas or grassy areas where there might have been forests, but essentially cutting.

Manica Raymond Willms
Cutting down trees then.

Jen Beverley
Exactly. Or conducting prescribed burns that kill the trees. You know, what I've seen in Jasper, and I haven't been involved in the fuel treatments themselves in recent years. I did study them a bit in the past. But what I've seen there is a lot of fuel reduction treatments. So that's going in and thinning areas, reducing the fuels, and you can also remove the lower limbs on the trees. That makes it more difficult for fire to move vertically from the surface into the canopy and spacing out the trees. By removing our thinning stands and removing some of the trees makes it more difficult for fire to travel horizontally from crown to crown should it get up into the canopy. And really, much of that effort is about trying to keep the fire behavior on the surface once it gets up into a canopy. And when you have these conifer trees with these fine needles, those are very good at generating embers that can rain down into the built environment and set homes on fire. So you're trying to keep the fire on the surface, but that also means that the fire intensity is going to be lower and that's going to be more conducive to suppression. So you can then potentially have crews attacking the edge of the fire directly and putting it out.

And likewise, when it's on the surface, water bombers and heavy equipment are also going to be more effective at building fire line. So, you know, those treatments aren't intended to stop a fire, but they are intended to modify the fire behavior so that it is less of a threat, less embers, and it is easier to suppress.

Manica Raymond Willms
So that's a really important point that you're saying to kind of, you know, the goal is to keep it on the ground, on the surface, so it doesn't get into the canopy, it doesn't spread as quickly. How does that also affect how firefighters, I guess, fight the fire if it's on the ground versus in the canopy.

Jen Beverley
Right. So, I mean, once you've got a crown fire, once the fire is spreading at a high intensity and it's involving those aerial suspended fuels in the canopy, those needles, those live needles on the tree branches, there is no way to safely fight that on the ground. Right. The intensities would be so high that first of all, the tools that we have to construct fire line on the ground wouldn't be effective. So hand toodles and pumps and hose to try to actually douse the flames, the intensity would be too much. It's not going to have an effect. And it's also not safe to have people on the ground when you've got that kind of fire behavior.

When you have a surface fire, it's a whole other game. So you can have people actually putting and dousing the flames directly, and you can have heavy equipment building fire line helicopters, bucketing water to assist the firefighters on the ground. You know, the hope is that that's enough to then take further action and put it out. But the treatments themselves won't do that. They're just intended to modify the behavior of the fire.

Manica Raymond Willms
So then I guess the big question is they're intended to modify the behavior. How effective are they in actually controlling things? How effective do they tend to be?

Jen Beverley
It's a great question and we don't have a ton of data to evaluate that. And it's a good thing because a lot of these treatments are done in and around communities, and generally we don't have tons and tons of communities burning.

There have been instances, especially in recent years, where fires have moved through treatment areas and I've seen mixed reports. In some cases, it's clear they did have an impact and they achieved exactly what they were intended to achieve, the fire drop down. And that created the opportunity for crews to put the fire out.

In other cases, I have also heard reports of fires moving through those treatments and the treatments having almost no effect on them, on the fire behavior. So I think it can depend on a lot of factors. It can depend on how big the treatment was when it was done, the time that has passed, of course. So with the passage of time, you can expect the effect of the treatment to erode and need retreatment. Certainly all of the modeling that we do suggests that those treatments have a threshold. And there is, you know, when it's really, really extreme, you shouldn't expect them necessarily to be able to stop that sort of vertical transition and crown fire involvement. So, you know, it's not a guarantee. It's never a guarantee. You know, from a weather perspective, when you have really extreme conditions, it can exceed those limits of these treatments. And, you know, it's possible a fire could burn through them.

Nancy McDonald
Wow.

Manica Raymond Willms
I'm thinking of something one of our reporters, Carrie Tate, was telling us. She said they'd thinned the trees on one side of the highway. This fire in Jasper here we're talking about, they thinned the trees on one side of the highway and the fire was less intense on that side compared to the other side. And so I guess, Jen, do we have a sense of how effective these strategies were in this particular instance for this particular fire?

Jen Beverley
I haven't seen direct reports of what happened when the fire encroached on the treatments. And if that's, you know, that's an observation that's being documented, then that's wonderful to hear. Certainly we'll be able to collect some data and evaluate the extent to which those treatments had an impact in protecting the parts of town that weren't affected. And I wouldn't be surprised if they did. So, you know, I'm really hopeful that what we'll hear back are some reports that provide support for those treatments and demonstrate that they can be effective in protecting communities under even these extreme conditions.

Manica Raymond Willms
We've been talking a lot about Alberta. Are these kind of fire prevention strategies? Are they employed elsewhere in Canada, too? Do we know if we use these across the country?

Jen Beverley
They've been used predominantly in western Canada in the last 1015 years, especially, and have not been used to the same extent in eastern Canada, in part because a lot of the momentum for fuel management has come out of very difficult fire seasons and fires in western Canada. You know, the slave Lake fire in Alberta in 2011, the Fort McMurray fire, the Horse river fire that impacted Fort McMurray in 2016. You know, when you take a look at these fires and the recommendations are very consistent, they generally say we've got to be more proactive at trying to mitigate the risk. And we can't just rely on suppression to protect communities. And that means doing the, you know, managing the only part of this that we can, which is the fuels in eastern Canada, there's different types of ecosystems. There's a lot more water for fire suppression. The climate generally is a little bit more moist, and they haven't had the same successive and severe fire seasons and catastrophic fires that we've had in western Canada. So I think that there is an increasing interest, certainly, I've seen it among fire management agencies in eastern Canada to start doing more proactive fuel management as well.

Manica Raymond Willms
Obviously, we've been talking a lot about fuel, but are there any other things, Jen, that you recommend to communities when they're trying to help plan these things, help keep fires at bay or even just limit the damage?

Jen Beverley
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, FireSmart Canada provides great information on what you can do more broadly, just, you know, beyond the fuel, preparing your home, hardening your property so that it is less receptive to ignitions, and that could be building materials and cleaning up yards and eaves troughs and those kinds of things. But there's also a lot of other things that communities, and also in broader jurisdictions people are looking at. So evacuation planning is one of them. You know, the scale of the problem that we have vast fire prone landscapes in across Canada. We have people and communities embedded within those landscapes. We can't possibly expect to fuel manage that entire problem.

You know, you've got to do what you can to protect the community. With prevention, for example, to stop ignitions by people and also getting people out of harm's way. With evacuation, planning is the last resort. Ultimately, you can rebuild the communities, but you want to keep people safe.

Manica Raymond Willms
Jen, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.

Jen Beverley
Oh, thank you for having me.

Manica Raymond Willms
That's it for today. I'm manica Ramon wellms. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Michal Stein. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Fraynor is our managing editor.

Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.