‘This is shattering’: Officials respond to Jasper wildfire damage

Brett McKay,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

After a day of rain and the tireless efforts of fire crews subdued the wildfires that swept through the town of Jasper this week, a small group of government and emergency officials were able to return to the townsite on Friday to see firsthand all that had been lost, and all that had been saved.

Among those who toured Jasper were Premier Danielle Smith, federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Harjit Sajjan, and Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland.

Preliminary estimates are that 358 of the 1,113 structures in Jasper were destroyed in the fire.

Among them, the home of Mayor Ireland.

Seeing the scale of destruction caused by the wildfire was every bit as difficult as he had anticipated, Ireland said on Friday, and more useful than he expected.

“I can now speak, I think, more knowingly, on behalf of residents about their anguish, because it is entirely internal,” he said.

“There are hundreds of houses, whole neighbourhoods just gone,” Ireland said, fighting back tears.

As much as 70 per cent of the structures in Jasper survived the fire. This is cause for some relief and optimism, as many of the town’s iconic landmarks and hundreds of houses remain.

Though there is a large portion of the town left to build from, “at an individual level that is meaningless,” Ireland said.

“If it was one per cent it would be a dozen homes, a dozen families without their homes. I can understand that now in a way that I thought I could before. But I understand it better now, because I am among them.”

“Like all residents who are going to come to this realization, a house is packed mostly with memories. And so individually, this is shattering. But when I stood back and looked and saw what remains, I know that the community is still there. And I know that we can rebuild.”

Officials acknowledged that the extent of the damage incurred would have been significantly worse if not for the heroic efforts of firefighters.

Minister Sajjan expressed a debt of gratitude to emergency workers for their courage during this disaster when he spoke at a media event on Friday.

“One-hundred-and-fifty kilometre per hour winds with a fire wall of a hundred-and-fifty meters, itself moving so quickly, launching embers and branches on fire about a kilometre, working in that environment is intense and the decisions that you made saved critical infrastructure. And that is what we need to focus on,” Sajjan said.

The town of Jasper has released a map and list of street addresses detailing the structures damaged by the fire. Some of the buildings undamaged by the fire include the municipal office and maintenance compound, the CNR Building, Parks Information Centre, Cottage Medical Clinic, Mountain Park Housing Co-operative, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Best Western Inn, Marmot Lodge, Cavell Court Apartments, and Sawridge Inn.

“I am confident that huge portions of our town remain standing because of the work that was done in preparation and by the people on the ground. They are still there. They are still working. But had it not been for the preparation, had it not been for the efforts of the people on the field, I think the devastation would have been far more extensive,” Ireland said.

The Jasper wildfire complex is still classified as out-of-control, and is approximately 32,000 hectares in size, according to Parks Canada.

Brett McKay,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
St. Albert Gazette