In what is becoming an unfortunately common occurrence, the town of Jasper, Alta. has been ravaged by a wildfire of unprecedented scale. Crews report witnessing "300- to 400-foot flames," while one-third of Jasper's buildings were destroyed. Luckily, there have been no reported fatalities so far.
If a fire can burn the town of Jasper in a national park that has the resources to deal with fire, what does the future hold for hundreds of small boreal forest towns across the country that do not have the means, know-how or resolve to accept that fire will come someday?
Jasper is the latest in a growing number of communities affected by wildfires. Twenty thousand people living in Yellowknife were evacuated from their homes for more than three weeks in 2023. The B.C. town of Lytton is still rebuilding after it burned in 2021.
Indigenous people, who represent five per cent of the population, are disproportionately affected by wildfires, as First Nations communities comprise 42 per cent of evacuations. Residents of Fort Good Hope, a community that is mainly Indigenous in the Northwest Territories, were recently displaced from their homes for three weeks due to a wildfire.
Jasper reinforces just how much we need a national wildfire strategy to bring together all levels of governance within the business and Indigenous communities to map out a blueprint for how to better predict, prevent, mitigate and manage fires, and how to provide small boreal communities with the resources they need to make them more resilient.
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