 Poster: A snowHead
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Buildings in the Canadian tourist town of Jasper have been burning after wildfires forced 25,000 people to evacuate the area on Tuesday, officials said.
The blaze has spread through Jasper National Park, causing "significant loss" within the town, according to park officials on X, external, formerly Twitter.
Hundreds of wildfires have sparked in the western provinces of Alberta and British Columbia (BC). The region has been hit by more than 58,000 lightning strikes within the last week, sparking new blazes after a three-week heat wave, according to BC Wildfire Service.
Around 1,900 Alberta firefighters have been deployed, assisted by personnel from Alaska and Australia, and are working to save local infrastructure.
Fires were first reported in Jasper last week. The town's mayor, Richard Ireland, told CBC that the town was facing its "worst nightmare".
Jasper National Park said on X that "air quality had deteriorated" in the area. The park is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies.
After evacuations were issued, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told residents to "leave safely" on Wednesday. In a post on Facebook, she said she was in "constant contact" with the authorities.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government has approved a request for federal assistance for Alberta.
I've visited Jasper twice, once in Summer and again in winter (although I didn't get to ski there at Marmot Basin ).
The fires sound horrendous, my best wishes go to the inhabitants of Jasper and the surrounding area.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@Alastair Pink, 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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That's pretty grim. Hard to overstate how isolated the town is. Hope there is enough air capacity to evacuate all those left if they do lose the battle. Revise those bookings for Marmot Basin next winter.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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StepD is putting up a family of friends, who had to be evacuated from Jasper, at their house in Kamloops. They are fairly certain their house will be on fire by now. It’s heartbreaking.
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It's hard to imagine how bad that must be. I've seen what it's like afterwards, and how it smells, but having your house in that is a different level of bad.
At this time of year the tourist trade's going to be hurting too - the whole of that section across from Tête Jaune is closed.
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I've always thought of BC/Rockies as being reasonably wet but clearly not this year. (I know there is debate about the Okanagan temperate desert). A reason to celebrate UK grey summers.
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| Dave of the Marmottes wrote: |
| I've always thought of BC/Rockies as being reasonably wet but clearly not this year. (I know there is debate about the Okanagan temperate desert). A reason to celebrate UK grey summers. |
BC maybe wet, not the Rockies.
It’s got to do with the temperature rises. What used to be occasional small and localized fires can turn into big ones when it gets warmer long enough.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Grim news. We were there this equivalent week two years ago - driven up from Calgary and Banff, spent time in the national park and then boarded the Rocky Mountaineer this equivalent day.
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Places like Ashcroft & Cache creek have always been horribly hot and dry in summer when I've been there. Too hot to be outside, even before climate change.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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'Monster' fires may have destroyed half of historic Canadian town
Huge, fast-moving wildfires have destroyed up to half of the historic Canadian town of Jasper, officials say, and the blazes are still out of control as firefighters try to save as many buildings as possible.
Entire streets of the main town in western Canada's Jasper National Park have been levelled by the fire, with video showing smouldering rubble where homes once stood and the charred remains of cars.
Devastating. 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Terrible news
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They are mightily relieved to find out their house is still standing. Lots of folk don’t have a house anymore though.
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You know it makes sense.
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| dode wrote: |
| They are mightily relieved to find out their house is still standing. Lots of folk don’t have a house anymore though. |
Good news for them, sadly as you say many of their neighbours in Jasper won't be so fortunate.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I see the temperature has dropped and there could be some rain tonight.
I was speaking to a mate of mine who has skin in the game, Although he lives in Wiltshire he has a holiday home just outside Golden (Kicking Horse)
He told he had an alert yesterday for the threat of forest fires around Golden.
They have suffered very high temperatures recently.
One can only pray for those people.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Alastair Pink wrote: |
The region has been hit by more than 58,000 lightning strikes within the last week |
Aside from all the horror of forest fires… that is an amazing number.
Portugal suffered badly several years ago with many burned as they tried to escape a village. Someone then created an app fed by the emergency services (they are volunteers) plotting basic details onto open street map. I can now see fire location, and number of people, vehicles and aerial support involved.
Friend of mine had one large fire consuming the wasteland near his new house last week. He got away with it but living away from town has its disadvantages. I don’t know if he’ll try to cut a firebreak for future.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Half the town is smoked.
Jasper Fairmont Lodge got singed.
The worst hit is the wildlife. Bears, lynx, mountain goats, etc. Thousands will be toast.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Awful - but it's good to know no deaths have been reported - let's hope that it stays that way. Credit to those who oversaw an orderly evacuation.
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Having visited Jasper and surrounding areas I can only echo the sentiments already shared by other snowHeads.
Hope all the inhabitants remain safe and that a major long term rebuild operation ensues. Must be devastating for the diverse wildlife and natural environment.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Global temperature rise is clearly a factor - the Alberta premier does not believe in it! Other part is the suppression of fires over many years means more fuel than there should be 
Best wishes to all involved.
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Awful news, we were there last September for a bit of cycling and general touring about in a camper van. When we went up on the Jasper Skytram the lift guy remarked that the wild fire smoke smell had only just cleared in the past few weeks. Seems much worse this year.
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It would appear that a truly unprecedented lightning event combined with fire practices which are not universally supported conspired to create a one in a generation / recorded history event
Statistically the number of wildfires across N America has reduced year on year
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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An awful glimpse of what's to come, I suspect. So many parts of the world heading towards being uninhabitable.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@phil_w, thanks for doing the legwork.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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"Statistics" are only useful as a guide.
If, in the past they may have recorded 15-20 small fires over a few weeks, but now they have one big fire in one week(as seems to be the case in recent years), the Stats soon become useless.
The bigger fires are much more difficult to get under control, and often result in much greater overall damage than the smaller ones.
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| motdoc wrote: |
| Global temperature rise is clearly a factor |
Eh? In what way is this clear? I mean, I'm not saying it's not true, but it's far from self-evident AFAICT.
| motdoc wrote: |
| the Alberta premier does not believe in it |
Which belief won't be changed much by people making claims with nothing to back them up, like you just did.
Anyway, yes, it's sad to see. We spent Christmas week there one time, which was memorable for not necessarily the right reasons, notably that from xmas eve afternoon everything was shut. Shops, bars and restaurants. One pizza place only was open until 730 We were staying in the central hotel/pub, looking forward to a party evening, only to find that not only was it shut, there was only one night-porter on duty n the whole place. Late afternoon a bunch of tourists doing the CP railroad arrived, only to be confronted with a town where they were unable to get anything to eat and drink. We shared our meagre drinks supply, which we'd bought earlier that day having been forewarned, with a group of four or five of them, sitting in the closed bar with lights turned off. Was all a bit surreal.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Origen wrote: |
| An awful glimpse of what's to come, I suspect. So many parts of the world heading towards being uninhabitable. |
Was recently in Vegas.
Temps were nudging +50c / +122f.
Around 1 million people are living there quite happily.
No problems at all.
Just turnup the aircon.
The average worldwide temp is +17c / +63f.
That's chilly.
Plenty of headroom left for the world to get hotter.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Much firewood lying round outside Vegas? Thought not.
@Chaletbeauroc, Go outside when it’s wet and cold, try to start a fire. Then go outside when it’s hot and dry. Consider the difference. Then get back under your bridge and enjoy the shade.
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Poster: A snowHead
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This is the one I came across
Far from clear IMHO
Table 1 says more fires but less acres burned
The accompanying text says the opposite
https://www.dryad.net/post/wildfires-usa-statistics#viewer-1sfcq
And in the first link you provided it stated that 75% of the fires are started by humans
So whilst the fuel can certainly be drier and more flammable because of rising temperatures and lower rainfall, the 'heat' is overwhelmingly introduced into the 'fire triangle' by the actions of humans, both deliberate and accidental.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Fire breaks have long been recognised in many places. It's not just "indigenous wisdom" though that's a fashionable notion at the moment. In parts of Australia, for example, the obligation maintain fire breaks is a legal one for property owners, with serious sanctions. That's for prevention, but lighting deliberate "back fires" is also, I believe, one of the techniques of fighting wild fires, needing good judgement!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Origen wrote: |
| Fire breaks have long been recognised in many places. It's not just "indigenous wisdom" though that's a fashionable notion at the moment. In parts of Australia, for example, the obligation maintain fire breaks is a legal one for property owners, with serious sanctions. That's for prevention, but lighting deliberate "back fires" is also, I believe, one of the techniques of fighting wild fires, needing good judgement! |
Correct
But they've become very unfashionable / toxic in the US
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FAQ
