Yesterday, Jasper National Park, the famous Jasper National Park in the Rocky Mountains of Canada, was forced to close due to the spread of wildfires, and the ice field road connecting Jasper and Banff was closed, and tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate the town of Jasper and seek refuge in British Columbia.
At the time, the official narrative was that "the fire was serious, but it would not pose a threat to the town for the time being", but a heartbreaking event followed: the fire spread rapidly due to thunderstorms and windy weather, and the relentless wildfire had reached the southwest side of the town yesterday!
Maligne Lake Lodge, a long-standing, cost-effective and well-received hotel in Jasper, was engulfed in flames in a short period of time and burned to the ground!
The forest part of the Fairmont Jasper Lodge, Jasper's most famous hotel, has also caught fire, but it has not affected the lodge for the time being. Thanks to the blocking of multiple private lakes, the resort should not suffer major losses.
But that's just the beginning: Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland confirmed on social media – "We are shocked and heartbroken that multiple homes have already been burned across the city and the fire is still spreading."
"We can't predict how many buildings will be damaged, because the situation is changing so quickly and my heart is with you," says Richard Ireland.
National support for Jasper has been met with little success
Compared to Lytton, a small city in British Columbia that was destroyed by wildfires in 2021, Jasper is much bigger in terms of scale and fame. The worst of all: the town of Jasper no longer exists, and visitors to Jasper National Park will have nowhere to stay.
Moreover, there are more than 5,000 local residents in Jasper Town, and if these more than 5,000 people lose their homes, what will they do? Some of them are travel workers, how will they survive when their hotels are burned down and national parks are closed?
Because of Jasper's importance, since yesterday, Alberta, BC, and other provinces across the country, as well as the Canada Parks Service accident management team, rushed to help, and the Canada military also rushed to help.
As of yesterday evening, 260 firefighters, two water tankers, a large water system, 13 fire engines and nine planes were battling the fire in Jasper.
But so far, at least, the wildfires are far from under control, with nearly 500 square kilometres burned, the size of four Vancouver cities. The air pollution index has reached a level that even firefighters can hardly bear.
Is it possible that the town of Jasper will all be burned to fire? The fire department was noncommittal, saying only that "we do everything we can to protect the historic building from damage", with the subtext that it is impossible to save the whole of Jasper.
In the face of nature, human beings are insignificant, and everyone understands this truth. What's more, the wildfires around Jasper are only a small fraction of Alberta's current wildfires, with more than 100 wildfires raging across the province, and firefighters are helpless about it.
What was once a beautiful town has become purgatory
I just went to Jasper National Park 4 months ago, and I think it's more beautiful than Banff National Park, because it's quiet, it's quiet, it's quiet, it's not over-commercialized.
Walking through the small town of Jasper, you can feel the elegant slow life, especially the holiday cabins here, away from the hustle and bustle. However, when the relentless wildfires arrived, these fragile wooden houses were simply unable to withstand them.
Through some photos released by the rescue team at the scene, it can be seen that the once beautiful town of Jasper can now only be described as "purgatory". Canada's state media CBC described the current situation of Jasper as follows:
Rows of buildings are only charred rubble, some only have foundations, smoke billows above large tracts of land, there are many burned cars on both sides of the road, and charred trees stand like matches......
Although the personnel have been evacuated, don't forget that Jasper's animal population is very rich, such as deer, wolves, and bears, and the image of them escaping in the flames can be heartbreaking.
How fierce is the fire? Here's what James, Wildfire Information Officer for Parks Service Canada describes: "The tallest flames were 400 feet tall and spread 15 meters per minute, and no amount of fire protection could extinguish them." ”
So the reality is: firefighters watch the small town of Jasper struggle in flames, but there's nothing they can do. This sense of desperation can be understood even by a bystander.
The fire is so big that it has formed a "fire storm"
The tragic situation in the small town of Jasper and the powerlessness of the firefighters are also reflected in another "outrageous" phenomenon; The Jasper fire is so big that it has formed its own weather system, commonly known as the "fire storm".
"When a fire burns hot enough and fast enough, clouds on the ground from heat and burning can form a fire storm and trigger various meteorological conditions such as thunder and wind," said Mike Flannigan, Thompson Rivers University's Research Chair in Predictive Services, Emergency Management and Fire Science. ”
"Only in the most volatile and severe fires can there be fire storms," says Mike Flannigan. If we take the analogy of an earthquake, the Jasper fire is probably equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 8.
"The wind likes the valley environment the most, and the fire loves to spread in the valley the most. Unfortunately, Jasper was right in the valley and the tragedy could not be stopped. ”
The only good news is that from today, the winds are starting to weaken, the humidity is rising, the rain is starting to get heavier, and tomorrow there may be heavy rain that will stop the fire from spreading to some extent. However, this does not mean that the town of Jasper will not be destroyed in one fell swoop, and everything will have to be left to fate.
Jasper National Park, one of the Canada's signature attractions, is destined to have a long road to recovery, and the wildfires are bound to be a serious blow to Canada aspiring to revive tourism......