Jasper National Park forest fire 7 years in the planning

A forest fire in Jasper National Park seven years in the planning may be touched off this fall as part of of change in direction in forest management at Parks Canada.

"We wait for that right window of opportunity with the weather and the forest fuel dryness ... before we can carry out a prescribed fire," says forest expert Kim Weir.

For seven years, Weir said, park staff has tried to ignite a 750-hectare managed forest fire in the Vine Creek area 20 kilometres north of the Jasper townsite.

But as in previous years nature is refusing to co-operate.

Prescribed burns are a change in strategy in managing forests in Canada's national parks.

For many years, fire management in the park has meant supressing fire, leaving densely-treed forests that are highly flammable and of poor quality for wildife.

"All of the species that we see in this fire-adapted landscape are used to fire and they're adapted to it in some way, shape or form," Weir said.

Fire is the best way to regenerate the forest, she said.

"We have a nice blackened landscape that absorb the sunlight," she said. "We have less canopy cover that allows more sunlight to get down to that forest floor to allow that regeneration to happen."

Parks Canada says the perfect conditions to rejuvenate this forest won't occur until the fall at the earliest.