Jasper Evacuated due to wildfire

[1991 Canadian]

I’ll listen to any ideas on how can be more proactive with our forrest fire management/response under one condition. Whoever it is has to fully acknowledge that we are dealing with hotter and drier weather as a result of human induced climate change.

I am seeing a growing subset of individuals using poor forest management and arson as a way of deflecting their views/voting patterns on climate change. Human included climate change is real. Jasper. Fort Mac. Our summers of smoke. This should be a wake up call to the type of people that need their own evidence to trust the world is changing.

My anecdotal experience is the solutions will be unpopular. My family has a cabin in Invermere. The local fire department / government has come around with recommendations on making the houses more fire safe. Clearing brush / dead trees is popular and common sense. Asking people to cut down fire risk trees on their properties because they are too close to their homes / their neighbours homes is very unpopular.

It worries me that we’ve hit the tipping point where little can be done. Pine beetles don’t die in our warmer winters. It’s hotter and drier than ever before. Embers can travel 1-2 km’s. I’m all for more permanent firebreaks / controlled burns, but I dont think it will be enough.

Hopefully I’m wrong.

[Fuzz]

The indigenous population used to burn valleys all the time. If you look at old photos there is far less forest density than now. We had a long lag over the decades as this built up, and now we have to deal with the result.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by 1991 Canadian

I’ll listen to any ideas on how can be more proactive with our forrest fire management/response under one condition. Whoever it is has to fully acknowledge that we are dealing with hotter and drier weather as a result of human induced climate change.

I am seeing a growing subset of individuals using poor forest management and arson as a way of deflecting their views/voting patterns on climate change. Human included climate change is real. Jasper. Fort Mac. Our summers of smoke. This should be a wake up call to the type of people that need their own evidence to trust the world is changing.

My anecdotal experience is the solutions will be unpopular. My family has a cabin in Invermere. The local fire department / government has come around with recommendations on making the houses more fire safe. Clearing brush / dead trees is popular and common sense. Asking people to cut down fire risk trees on their properties because they are too close to their homes / their neighbours homes is very unpopular.

It worries me that we’ve hit the tipping point where little can be done. Pine beetles don’t die in our warmer winters. It’s hotter and drier than ever before. Embers can travel 1-2 km’s. I’m all for more permanent firebreaks / controlled burns, but I dont think it will be enough.

Hopefully I’m wrong.

You aren’t, the combination of a hotter drier climate, matched up with fire suppression for decades, and greater human interfaces at the forests and we are set up for this tragedy over and over again here. We are entering the adaptation phase of climate change, the pointoif no return is likely here or in the near future. We should still try to minimize the impacts but we can’t keep sacrificing towns without making changes to how we manage our forests and towns.

This is going to mean some tough choices that will be unpopular, or we can keep looking at the footage of towns in smoking ruins.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I get your point, but it is also a consideration. A permanent conversion would result in a severe limitation on evacuating the other side of the river.

One thing Banff really should do is add an evac route. Their is a trail from the Cave and Basin all the way to the Sunshine road. This could be paved as a bike route to create a loop out to the 1A turnoff. In the case of an emergency, they would then have a paved road to use.

They have gates so Roam Transit can still use the street...it would be pretty much as simple as opening the gate in an emergency.

The bike path is a good idea on its own (and really PC wanted to build a long ass path along the old highway ROW in JNP, so it shouldn't necessarily be an immediate no, except they are too cowardly to make the 1A a 1-way road in peak months). Linking up with the 1A would be a little tricky; short of building a new bridge you'd need to add a physical barrier on the EB bridge and reduce the speed limit...which is a crime against humanity of course.

I wonder whether the north or south side of the Bow is more likely to burn. A lot more fuel on the south side, but the north is probably drier based on its aspect. I'd think the south is a lot more likely to have a town threatening fire, which is basically where this route would be.

There is a gravel road off Tunnel Mountain Rd that gets to within 150m of HWY to the east. But in that distance it has to cross a creek and the tracks. But its also hard to imagine a scenario where the Banff Ave exit would fail and this would bypass it.

In Jasper, I suspect the highway to Hinton probably wasn't impossible to use as a route, but that it was more important to keep it clear for operational reasons. Since HWY 1 is divided, that shouldn't be a problem here, even if the absolute worst case scenario means driving pretty close to some flames.

[Fuzz]

I'm sure someone could figure out a bridge if they cared enough. The problem with south Banff is the only escape route is the bridge. I just think it's prudent, even without a bike trail, to have another exit.


I assumed the night of the evacuation the second fire was blocking the Hinton escape route, and it later opened up. But that wasn't based on any facts I know.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

With the sloppy forest management and fire response, more towns/communities will be lost (completely or largely) to wildfires. Which will be next - maybe Banff, Waterton or one of many other communities in forested areas? Our government doesn’t seem to care, Smith’s crocodile tears notwithstanding.

I know! I've been sayin' it! You have to earn this hat!

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by 1991 Canadian

I’ll listen to any ideas on how can be more proactive with our forrest fire management/response under one condition. Whoever it is has to fully acknowledge that we are dealing with hotter and drier weather as a result of human induced climate change.

I am seeing a growing subset of individuals using poor forest management and arson as a way of deflecting their views/voting patterns on climate change. Human included climate change is real. Jasper. Fort Mac. Our summers of smoke. This should be a wake up call to the type of people that need their own evidence to trust the world is changing.

My anecdotal experience is the solutions will be unpopular. My family has a cabin in Invermere. The local fire department / government has come around with recommendations on making the houses more fire safe. Clearing brush / dead trees is popular and common sense. Asking people to cut down fire risk trees on their properties because they are too close to their homes / their neighbours homes is very unpopular.

It worries me that we’ve hit the tipping point where little can be done. Pine beetles don’t die in our warmer winters. It’s hotter and drier than ever before. Embers can travel 1-2 km’s. I’m all for more permanent firebreaks / controlled burns, but I dont think it will be enough.

Hopefully I’m wrong.

Probably the best thing you could do would be not making needles trips to a vacation cabin significantly reducing your carbon footprint.

As for saving towns and homes, clear cutting a fire barrier between town boundaries and development is a no brainer. Does it need to be clear cut 1km? 2km? I don’t know but a this would’ve saved a lot of the destruction in Ft Mcmurray, Jasper, and Slave Lake.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

Probably the best thing you could do would be not making needles trips to a vacation cabin significantly reducing your carbon footprint.

As for saving towns and homes, clear cutting a fire barrier between town boundaries and development is a no brainer. Does it need to be clear cut 1km? 2km? I don’t know but a this would’ve saved a lot of the destruction in Ft Mcmurray, Jasper, and Slave Lake.

Probably would help, but imagine drawing a 2km circle around Banff and cutting all of that. Nobody would agree to it, even if it’s the right decision. Still we are going to need to take fuel out of the interfaces, we are going to need to reduce combustible materials in towns, we will need better rapid response wildfire attacks and we may need to change our approach to urban fire fighting equipment to better run and around and shoot down hot spots with a water cannon as the embers start to land. Probably need a summer time inter agency, inter governmental team fully authorized to do what needs to be done so you don’t need to ask for help, or get people together when the crap starts happening.

I’m sure there’s more, but lots needs to change, and it should be in place by next summer.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'm sure someone could figure out a bridge if they cared enough. The problem with south Banff is the only escape route is the bridge. I just think it's prudent, even without a bike trail, to have another exit.


I assumed the night of the evacuation the second fire was blocking the Hinton escape route, and it later opened up. But that wasn't based on any facts I know.

That's fair. A vehicle bridge over Brewster Creek would not be very simple and therefore expensive.

You're right that the bridge is definitely the choke point, though - Banff Ave ped zone is just one of three options on the north side.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

Probably the best thing you could do would be not making needles trips to a vacation cabin significantly reducing your carbon footprint.

As for saving towns and homes, clear cutting a fire barrier between town boundaries and development is a no brainer. Does it need to be clear cut 1km? 2km? I don’t know but a this would’ve saved a lot of the destruction in Ft Mcmurray, Jasper, and Slave Lake.

It would need to be a lot, fire creates it's own weather with high winds blowing hot embers for miles, plus these firenado's are a nightmare.

[GGG]

Part of the solution is hardening the buildings themselves. Buildings need to be resistant to flaming embers being tossed by fires. This is very expensive to retrofit

[calgarygeologist]

Here is a good writeup on how forest management/fire suppression and climate change and working in conjunction to create a high risk environment for forest fires:

Mountain pine beetle are a natural part of the southern Rocky Mountain ecosystem and have historically existed at endemic levels. This means that there is a normal, small population that is prevented from getting too large by natural factors like climate, predation and fire. Decades of fire suppression and climatic warming trends have helped beetle populations grow from endemic to epidemic proportions.

Dr. Allan Carroll of the Canadian Forest Service explains why:

"Pine forests in general, and in particular lodgepole pine forests, are historically of fire origin. Normally, these forests burn down and regrow and in fact they do it with a fair amount of frequency. We expect lodgepole pine, on average, to burn down and regrow every hundred or so years on a long, broad average. This has been a very effective thing and in fact it has made sure that the forest has been very variable over time because this means that bits and pieces of the forest burn down and regrow and as a consequence, we don’t have a lot of old pine. Now, this is where the mountain pine beetle enters the scenario, because what has happened is through our own fire suppression techniques, we have taken forest fire largely out of the equation and allowed the forest to grow and become old over large areas; and as a consequence, this means that mountain pine beetle has got a large food source because it likes old trees. So, given that we’ve taken forest fire out of the picture, it means that we’ve made a lot more food for the mountain pine beetle."

Beetles thrive on mature, large pine trees. Partly as a result of fire suppression, large patches of mature pine forests now dominate the landscape. Left to burn, fires tend to create a mosaic of forest patches of various species, ages and densities. This makes the landscape as healthier, and less susceptible to widespread beetle outbreaks.

Large, mature pine trees are preferred by mountain pine beetle because:
-They are generally bigger and easier for the beetles to find.
-The large size means more beetles can live there, and there is more room for young to develop.
-Older pine trees are less resistant to mountain pine beetle colonization.
-The bark is thicker and offers more protection from the weather and predators.
-The phloem (the tree tissue beetles feed on) is thicker, and provides more food.

Mountain pine beetles also like heat! Because of this, Parks Canada has developed a model that predicts areas that receive high levels of heat from the sun. These are the areas where beetle populations are most likely to survive. This model helps Parks Canada manage beetles more effectively.

Cold winters have typically been a factor that control the spread of mountain pine beetle, in addition to fire. A warming climate and mild winters have allowed more mountain pine beetle to survive the winter and go on to colonize new trees in the spring. Studies show that warming trends over the past few decades have allowed beetles to move into higher elevation areas and more northerly regions that were once too cold for the beetle to survive. Such is the case in Jasper National Park.

Dr. Allan Carroll of the Canadian Forest Service talks about climate change and mountain pine beetle:

"Right now the mountain pine beetle populations have been restricted to the southern half of British Columbia primarily. And they’ve been restricted because of two aspects of climate. The first is this issue of cold, -40 degrees limiting the distribution of the beetle mostly. The other is a bit more complex and it has to do with cool summertimes. So when the summer temperatures are too cold for the mountain pine beetle to complete its development in a single year, then what happens is, the mountain pine beetle is forced to go into winter, in stages that aren’t ready for wintertime itself so it can suffer a lot of mortality. With climate change, we expect not only for there to be fewer episodes of very cold wintertime temperatures, but also too that summertime temperatures are going to increase. So both of these together are going to allow the mountain pine beetle to move into areas where it hasn’t been previously."

https://parks.canada.ca/docs/v-g/dpp-mpb/sec1/dpp-mpb1a

[GioforPM]

People are acting like Parks Canada has never done controlled burns in Jasper.

They have. Both in the past and recently. They did a bunch in 2015 and had started a new program. But they hadn't completed the latest program started in 2022 (in fact they weren't even close to completion). They nshould havebeen more aggressive, but I suspect that was budgetary. And while they control the budget, spending money on Parks isn't very well taken a lot of the time, except after the fact.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Here is a good writeup on how forest management/fire suppression and climate change and working in conjunction to create a high risk environment for forest fires:



https://parks.canada.ca/docs/v-g/dpp-mpb/sec1/dpp-mpb1a

The article doesn't mention forest management once.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

The article doesn't mention forest management once.

What it sure mentions is climate change. A lot of the RWers online have blames the feds for not controlling pine beetles, but the article suggests climate change is a major factor in proliferation, which is not exactly part of the RW thought process.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

The article doesn't mention forest management once.

Fire management, which includes fire suppression, is an integral part of forest management (and the writeup discusses that extensively):

Just as fire is an integral part of the forest, fire management is an integral part of forest management.

https://natural-resources.canada.ca/...nagement/13157

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

What it sure mentions is climate change. A lot of the RWers online have blames the feds for not controlling pine beetles, but the article suggests climate change is a major factor in proliferation, which is not exactly part of the RW thought process.

This is climate change IMO and nothing else.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Fire management, which includes fire suppression, is an integral part of forest management (and the writeup discusses that extensively):


https://natural-resources.canada.ca/...nagement/13157

You'd be more accurate if you had just called it fire suppression and not throwing in the entire discipline of forest management under the bus.

[D as in David]

We're closing in on 300 posts about this and no one yet has blamed Locke for choosing accounting over forestry?

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by D as in David

We're closing in on 300 posts about this and no one yet has blamed Locke for choosing accounting over forestry?

He tried, I blocked it.