Bow Valley can't be fireproof, so officials work on resilience against future wildfire threats

When Jasper burned, the whole country felt it. 

If Banff burns, that too would leave a scar. 

Communities across the Bow Valley are in a similar boat. Their shared landscapes inspire widespread love of the outdoors. What makes them beautiful, makes them dangerous too. 

"We can't eliminate the risk, you know, especially in a changing climate with more extreme fire weather, extreme weather, wind, extreme fire behaviour," said Jane Park, Parks Canada Fire and Vegetation Specialist in Banff National Park.

Officials in the towns of Canmore and Banff, the municipal district of Bighorn, Parks Canada staff and residents came together in February to show what it takes to prepare for what some consider inevitable: the day a wildfire threatens one, or several of these communities. 

"In the last several years we've seen a lot of fires move 30-40 kilometres at a time," said Park. 

The drive between Canmore and Banff? On the highway it's a 25 kilometre shot. Canmore to Harvie Heights? Those communities are five kilometres apart. 

"Without all of us in collaboration, one weak link could affect our entire process," said Mike Bourgon, deputy chief of the Canmore Fire Department. "Wildfire remains a top rated hazard to life, property and critical infrastructure within and around the Bow Valley."

Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., says some communities are high risk locations when it comes to wildfire. Both Banff and Jasper are nestled in valleys. 

"Valleys are just like highways for fire."

It starts big, at a landscape level

Historically, naturally-occurring wildfires, and Indigenous cultural fire practices created a balance of trees, open space and forest regeneration.  

When Indigenous cultural fire practices were banned with the creation of Banff National Park, and fire suppression became the norm, forests became denser, which partly caused larger and more intense wildfires.

That calls for a shift: from extinguishing fires and using flames to manage overgrown forest – and even clear-cutting swaths of trees in an attempt to take away any potential fuel from future wildfires. 

The Lake Louise Community Fire Guard is just one example — a project that began in 2024, and won't be complete until 2027. 

Shelley Tamelin, wildfire risk reduction project manager for the Lake Louise Yoho and Kootenay Field unit stands near the Great Divide Trail in Lake Louise.

In front of her, there are big machines thinning the forest, processing trees for lumber. Behind her, in the distance, the Lake Louise Ski Resort sits on the other side of the highway. 

"So the ski runs that you're seeing there, that's what we'll be connecting into by the end of next winter," she said. "It's not a solid line. Of course. There's lots of little buffers in between."

Work on clearing about 70 hectares of land is underway — once completed, there will be a 165.4-hectare fire guard in the forest. 

It looks like a logging operation in a National Park. 

But this technique has become critical for areas where there are people and infrastructure. A buffer of protection, and a tool that can help those fighting a wildfire on the ground have more options, and possibly time, in an emergency. 

"This unit that we're in right now would primarily protect the [Fairmont] Chateau. Once we get into the unit down below, they would be protecting alpine bungalows, Deer Lodge and the community of Lake Louise," Tamelin said. 

Beside the Bow Valley Parkway there's a patch of forest with charred trees — along the Sawback Range — a prescribed burn site that's seen intentional fire starts many times. 

After nearly a century of fire suppression, Parks Canada has moved away from extinguishing all the fires it can to using fire to fight fire again. 

Scientists now believe forests should burn, it is natural, healthy, and it helps them regenerate.

"It's actually in a really good spot right now and we may look to burn it kind of again in the next 10 [years] — because that's kind of back to the normal fire cycle of 10 to 50 years," said Park. 

It's hard to look at all these wildfire mitigation tools without thinking about Jasper and wondering whether that community made the same efforts to prepare for a natural disaster.

"Yes, Jasper has done a lot of the same types of mitigation. So, prescribed fires, mechanical logging and FireSmart, all all the same tools in the tool box," Park said. 

What does success look like when fighting wildfires?

The events in Jasper on July 22, 2024 still hang over any mention of wildfire in a National Park.

In the days after the wildfire, Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said the fact that 70 per cent of the town was saved was a testament to preparations made by both the community and Parks Canada. 

In times of natural disaster there are always opportunities to look back and pick apart what happened on the ground, or even how governments responded or funded efforts during or ahead of the disaster. 

Over time, Flannigan said the public has increased its expectations when it comes to wildfire response. He says the bar has been set really high.

"If you got 95 per cent on a test, you'd feel pretty good — fire management agencies deal with 95 per cent of the fire effectively, but the five per cent cause all the problems," he said. 

"That's the extremes… we're seeing record-breaking conditions alright, things we've never seen before."

Preparing close to home

A white sign greets those who enter Valleyview, a community in Banff, it reads: FireSmart Neighbourhood. 

Neighbours have spent more than 1,000 volunteer hours securing their property against wildfire as best they can. 

"It starts at your property and moves out," resident Chris Worobet said.

This FireSmart approach means removing anything that could burn from around your property. But that doesn't mean all trees are banned from the neighbourhood. Worobet said they re-planted about 50 trees to fill up the empty space — deciduous trees, that don't burn as easily as coniferous trees.

From a plastic tote, Worobet pulls out a sprinkler system — it's not garden variety, these have been purpose-built to be attached to homes in the event of a wildfire threat. 

Installation is as easy as grabbing a painter's pole in a garden to hoist and hook the sprinkler onto the eavestrough of the home, Worobet's neighbour demonstrates.  

"When nobody's looking, he can do it in 17 seconds. When people are looking, sometimes it takes a little longer," Worobet said. 

Worobet figures a major wildfire is in the cards for the town of Banff, one similar to Jasper. The fire itself, he adds, isn't what worries him, it's the aftermath of having to rebuild. 

"If your unit burns down here in the Bow Valley, where do you go? There's a housing shortage here," he said. 

Preventing fires in the first place

Flannigan believes FireSmart practices should be mandatory in high-risk communities like Banff. But there's another risk he says shouldn't be overlooked: the human element.

"Over half of the fires typically are started by people, and those are preventable," Flannigan said. 

As Alberta's wildfire seasons become longer, he says, governments are getting better at planning and prevention, but that's where he sees the most room for improvement. 

In 2024, he says, Alberta and British Columbia saw weather conditions that increased wildfire risk, and called in resources beforehand. He believes that kind of foresight, along with forested area closures and other policies, will help communities — to a degree. 

"There will always be fire and there will always be times when communities are [threatened]," he said. "The reality is we live in a flammable world that's becoming more flammable."