Officials give a larger tour of Jasper, Alta., showing toll of massive wildfire
2nd tour included all media members stationed in Hinton
Mathew Conte, the fire chief of Jasper, Alta., had to make the call: his family's home had to burn.
A fire that threatened the historic townsite for days had finally reached the evacuated community Wednesday evening. During a tactical patrol, while firefighters tried to hold off the inferno reaching 100 metres tall, Conte spotted multiple homes on his block on fire — and the flames had spread to the side of his own.
"It would have been easy to ask for crews to come in and extinguish," Conte told CBC News in Jasper, Alta., Sunday.
But at that point, he said, the town had suffered significant damage. That section was unsafe for firefighters to be and crews were starting to fall back to the east, to a more defensive position.
"We had to make the call just to move out of the area and let things go," he said.
Conte is among the eight Jasper firefighters — and many residents — whose homes and businesses were incinerated by the massive wildfire this week. Officials estimated that 358 of the 1,113 total structures in town, about one-third, were destroyed.
The Municipality of Jasper released a map and list of addresses Saturday, showing which were affected and how severely. The information is preliminary, based only on what damage is openly visible, officials said, and further damage assessments are underway.
On Friday, a few members of the media were allowed to join government and emergency officials in Jasper, documenting the damage for the first time.
But on Sunday, Parks Canada bussed more media members to Jasper for another, more expansive look at the town and national park — along Highway 16 from Hinton, Alta., a town east of the park where the wildfire command centre is now located.
Parts of Highway 16, a critical access road that's now closed to the public, are still actively burning and smouldering, Parks Canada said in an online update Sunday.
En route along the highway, helicopters carrying water whirred above the forest toward a hot spot. The Rocky Mountains were visible through a haze, but at points, summits were concealed by thick smoke. Portions of the forest were lifeless, but fried trees and branches still stand.
The fire that burned Jasper eventually merged with a fire north of the community, closer to Highway 16. Alongside the Utopia fire near Miette Springs, they make the group of out-of-control fires now called the Jasper Wildfire Complex.
They are part of the 137 total wildfires burning in Alberta as of 8 p.m. MT Sunday, according to the Alberta Wildfire dashboard. But the Jasper fire is still the highest priority, provincial emergency officials said Sunday.
Combined, the Jasper fires have burned about 32,000 hectares in the national park as of Sunday, according to Parks Canada, which is leading the fire response. It's the largest fire the park has experienced in a century.
The agency is now trying to accurately map out damage in areas outside the Jasper townsite, including hotels, infrastructure and campgrounds.
"There are some facilities that are completely damaged," said Alan Fehr, Parks Canada's superintendent for Jasper National Park, while on the bus from Hinton. "We're trying to get into our main campgrounds."
Wildfire is a natural process, so Fehr was comfortable seeing it along the ride, he said. Its toll on the community, however, is troubling.
"It's a devastating loss. It's shattering," he said.
In Jasper, southbound along Connaught Drive, the town's main street, the row of businesses appears fine — until there's a sudden gap, in which sits a large pile of rubble. According to Conte, the fire chief, the remains belong to two restaurants, a liquor store, a pharmacy, a bike shop and a cannabis store.
Embers from the wildfire ignited some of the cedar-shake roofs around 3 a.m. MT Thursday, Conte said. Fire crews also knocked down the adjacent buildings on either side of the flames to stop them from spreading.
Across the street, a train passes beyond the local train station, which appears untouched.
These buildings are on the edge of the destruction, according to the map the municipality released Saturday.
West Jasper and southwest of Miette Avenue suffered the most damage, the map shows. Some parts of town nearly lost entire neighbourhoods.
Much of those areas look like wastelands. The wind hasn't blown away the ash covering the streets.
Many destroyed homes only have their foundations left. Some have scorched vehicles parked nearby, their tires melted. The stone pillars of some businesses are standing in front of debris; the Anglican church's doorway offers an entry into ruins.
Critical infrastructure buildings, however, such as the hospital and firehouse, have hoses travelling from their roofs to nearby fire hydrants, linking them to sprinkler systems that will spray areas around those buildings, preventing spot fires, Conte said.
All critical infrastructure was saved, officials have said. On Saturday, however, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on her provincewide radio show that her staff needs to get inside the hospital to check for damage, because its roof was reportedly on fire.
The wastewater treatment plant, in particular, was crucial to protect, said Christine Nadon, the town's incident commander, noting that it took three years to build the facility.
"If we lost that piece of critical infrastructure, delayed reentry would have been absolutely a thing," Nadon said.
The town lost some essential businesses in the fire, such as groceries, pharmacies and two gas stations, Nadon said. Due to the amount of tourism in Jasper, there are plenty of those businesses left that residents will be allowed back sooner.
Officials have not given a timeline as to when the people of Jasper will be allowed to return. The provincial government opened its evacuation payment program to those evacuees Friday, recognizing they could be away for at least several weeks.
Smith told listeners Saturday that she expects it would be close to 28 days before reentry, explaining it took a similar amount of time before Fort McMurray, Alta., residents got the green light to go home after it was hit by a ferocious fire in 2016.
Returning depends largely on the wildfire situation and local air quality, which was affected by chemicals released during the fire, Nadon said. Air quality is being tracked now, but the wildfire situation still has to stabilize.
Fire crews were still dousing flames in Jasper Sunday. Parks Canada officials had said fire suppression was progressing well in the Jasper townsite, expecting all remaining fires there would be extinguished Saturday.
Parks Canada estimates fire crews may be working on the Jasper Wildfire Complex overall for three months at least, Landon Shepherd, an agency deputy incident commander, told reporters Saturday.
Smith said Saturday on her radio show that she'd like to see bus tours organized for Jasper evacuees, so they can see the damage and know what to expect when they're eventually allowed to return home.
While walking past an exploded gas station Sunday afternoon, Nadon said the damaged properties will be blocked off to the public when residents return.
"To make it safe for people to circulate is one thing," Nadon said. "It's going to take a long time to clear all that debris."
'Good weekend for firefighting'
Much of the province received rainfall this weekend, which has significantly helped firefighting, including in the national park, said Melissa Story, Alberta Wildfire provincial wildfire information officer, during a virtual news conference Sunday afternoon.
"This was a good weekend for firefighting," Story said, but conditions are forecasted to change in the coming week.
An estimated 17,100 Albertans have been evacuated due to wildfires as of Sunday, said Joe Zatylny, deputy managing director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, during Sunday's provincial update.
The perimeter of the Jasper Wildfire Complex has been "generally stable" since the area received rain Thursday, Parks Canada said Sunday. Crews, however, are working to extinguish hot spots and build containment and control lines before warm weather returns.
Parks officials are trying to develop plans to reopen Highway 16 and the Icefields Parkway, but there is no timeline for that.
Structural protection sprinklers are being relocated, from previously burned areas to the active fire perimeter adjacent to the community and outlying structures — to protect these areas, Parks Canada previously said. This includes more structural protection sprinklers being installed at Lake Edith and businesses north of the town of Jasper.
On Sunday, the agency said fire crews may strategically ignite pockets of remaining fire fuel to better protect the community.
Atco Ltd., the power and natural gas utility for much of Alberta, made "significant progress" toward assessing its infrastructure in the Jasper area this weekend, the company said in a thread of posts on X, formerly Twitter.
Its crews were able to restore electricity to Jasper's wastewater treatment plant and most hotels where first responders are staying, the posts said. But "significant repairs" need to be made on its electrical system to restore power to other critical infrastructure.
Atco, the Muncipality of Jasper and Parks Canada are working on a two-phase plan to "underground" much of the distribution feed to the town, which will restore power to key facilities and improve reliability.
Crews inspected about half of its gas system so far, according to the posts. But the company did not specify any damage to those lines.
Parks Canada has said power is being restored to parts of the downtown core and critical infrastructure, which it said would help to speed up further damage assessment and recovery.
Rebuilding plans are taking shape with help from the federal government, as the town is part of Jasper National Park, Smith said on air Saturday.
"We've already begun a joint task force on how recovery is going to take place, trying to time when people are able to return to their community, and I'm very hopeful it will come back better than ever," the premier said.
Smith also said she'd like temporary housing arranged for residents so they can live in the town while they rebuild their homes, noting that temporary housing was also used during the reconstruction of High River, Alta., after it suffered devastating floods in 2013.
"We have seen a precedent where you set up a temporary community that allows people to live on-site while rebuilding is occurring," Smith told her radio audience, noting that nearby Hinton may be relied on for construction workers.
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With files from Natasha Riebe and The Canadian Press