Key points
- Bow Valley, Kananaskis residents encouraged to adopt FireSmart practices
- Wildfire, first responders, and municipalities answering questions at emergency preparedness open house Saturday (May 10) from 1-4 p.m. at Canmore Fire Station
- Lessons from Jasper Wildfire
The reports began trickling in on an eerie evening in July 2024 that were unwanted, but there was a gut feeling it was inevitable.
It had first seemed like a fire drill at elementary school; more a formality of following safety steps than an actual emergency, said Ray Schmidt.
Working as a Parks Canada human-wildlife conflict officer, a quiet evening with his partner at their home turned into a nighttime evacuation, with an ominous glow in the sky moving toward the town.
People were patient as they left the town by car on the only road out of town. Had they known what was about to happen then maybe things would have been different.
“You don’t see fire around here; it didn’t quite hit home for me,” said Schmidt.
Schmidt remained in Jasper 30 minutes before the raging wildfire breached town two days later, destroying one-third of the mountain community’s businesses and homes.
In many ways, Jasper represents every town: surrounded by mature forest and vulnerable to fire.
Schmidt, who is also a singer-songwriter and guitarist in The Wardens, lived in Canmore for 17 years before Jasper. He has thought about fire hitting the mountainous area for a long time. He says a “mentality shift” about living in wildfire-susceptible communities, like the Bow Valley, is needed from residents.
“Jasper proves things have changed and … We’re living in a changed world,” said Schmidt.
Although many proactive approaches to reduce wildfire risks within the mountain communities are ongoing.
Canmore Fire-Rescue is hosting an open house for Bow Valley Wildfire and Emergency Preparedness Day on Saturday (May 10), from 1-4 p.m. at its new location on Palliser Trail. It’s an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the Town of Canmore, Town of Banff, MD of Bighorn, Parks Canada, Alberta Wildfire, Alberta Parks, and the RCMP, but also a chance to talk to residents.
Canmore Fire-Rescue is on pace this summer to complete more than 200 free individual FireSmart home assessments, in which a trained member visits a property and reviews fire risk hazards to home exteriors with clear recommendations on moving forward.
The more prepared residents are, the better.
“We’re all in this together,” said Canmore Fire-Rescue’s deputy chief Michael Bourgon.
“Our firefighters are going to be fighting the fire, so the more that you can do as residents now to help us, the better off we’re going to be and the more successful we’ll be.”
One thing Bow Valley communities want to see is neighbourhood committees and Community Champions to coordinate a FireSmart activity tailored specifically to their neighbourhood like vegetation management, deadfall removal, safe landscaping practices, and potential structural improvements.
The more residents are involved, the better.
Fire in the sky
With the smell of burning wood in the breeze and grey ash floating down from cloudy sky, the Verdant Creek fire crept closer to Banff in 2017. About 24 kilometres from the town as the crow flies, the giant wildfire threatened to jump into the Bow Valley.
Fortunately, the fire couldn’t hurdle the mountains in the west, but it was at the mountain resort town’s doorstep. However, what could have very easily been burning embers raining down on the tourist town, the Banff Fire Department encourages every resident to take a look at the FireSmart recommendations and then hard look at their properties.
Katherine Severson, Banff’s director of emergency management and protective services, said what is often recognized in the emergency management community is that climate-related disasters have been significantly increasing year over year for many years now.
The Town of Banff has worked on vegetation management for more than 20 years on roughly 80 hectares around the town boundary.
“The big change in this past year was we were able to take a look at the Town of Banff infrastructure and focus on removing some of the trees and some of the hazards … and really take our FireSmart principles to heart on our own facilities because we can’t expect our residents to FireSmart their own properties if we as a municipality aren’t doing the same thing,” said Severson.
If every resident in town can follow the recommended FireSmart guidelines, Banff fire chief Keri Martin said “we’re much better off.”
“They have a responsibility in this fight, too,” said Martin. “We really need neighbourhoods to engage in this and we need residents to talk over their fences and have these conversations and say, ‘I’m going to clean up this weekend, do you want to join me?’”
“We know people are concerned, and Jasper, in particular, impacted the residents of the Bow Valley, and we’re concerned, too. That’s why we are doing this work and that’s why we’ve been working so hard to do this work for so long.”
When hellfire hit Jasper
“I was like, ‘OK, our house is gone’ and I didn't know the situation and I was working,” said Schmidt. “That’s a pretty tricky balancing act emotionally.”
With invaluable experience working with wildfires, Schmidt wore many hats leading up to the fateful day when flames breached Jasper.
Schmidt went from boots-on-the-ground incident response for Parks Canada in Jasper to an incident command team for planning. He was based out of Hinton, about 77 kilometres away, after wildfire forced first responders out of the area.
Schmidt believed the massive menace approaching would turn away at the last second and miss town. Kind of a wiping sweat from the brow moment. But by July 24, two days after the evacuation order, pictures started coming into the command station of the Maligne Lodge ablaze, then the fingers of the flames reached town.
While directing fire crews from across Alberta, Schmidt knew that the side of town where he and his partner made a home was on fire.
“All I cared was that my sweetheart was going to get out of town, my instruments were going to get out of town and our hats. Nothing really matters at that point, it’s just stuff,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt’s home was spared in the devastating blaze that caused more than $1 billion in damage and saw about 2,000 people lose their homes. Looking around at the aftermath, Schmidt carries a strong ache “survivor's guilt” on his shoulders.
“A bunch of friends’ homes burned, so that was hugely emotional, then when I found out mine didn’t, it was also hugely emotional,” he said.
Thinking back on his time in the Bow Valley and then Jasper, Schmidt said they are different, but really the same thing when it comes to wildfire vulnerability.
“It’s probably not an if, it’s a when,” he said.
