Anxious Banff gears up for first summer since Jasper wildfire

In the race to mitigate the damage from future wildfires, stewards of Alberta's parks have turned to loggers to create fire guards

Looking out over a budding meadow with blackened tree stumps on the edge of Banff National Park, Cliff White points to a dark thicket of trees where the empty plot ends.

“The next fire in here is going to be incredible,” says the former Parks Canada fire management co-ordinator, standing in the expansive Carrot Creek fire break.

The meadow was shorn more than 20 years ago by Parks Canada to slow future wildfires in their tracks before reaching Banff and Canmore.

But it’s a fraction of the dense, naturally fire-prone forest blanketing the Bow Valley, where fear is growing that a shower of embers, like those that destroyed a third of the structures in Jasper, Alta., last summer, could hit Alberta’s most popular tourist destination.

The Rockies are facing another year of drought conditions. The snow melted several weeks earlier than normal, and the snowpack is lower than it was in 2023, the year of Canada’s record-breaking wildfires, said John Pomeroy, a hydrologist who lives in Canmore.

“Canmore’s watching with great trepidation,” said Pomeroy, also a university professor.

In the race to mitigate the damage from future fires, stewards of Alberta’s parks have turned to loggers to create fire guards like Carrot Creek. The areas are designed to starve a fire of fuel and create enough empty land for embers to fizzle out on the ground.

This year, Parks Canada hired an Indigenous logging company to raze several hectares of land near Banff. Profits of that timber will be used to maintain the land, said Jane Park, fire and vegetation specialist for Banff National Park.