Jasper wildfire/climate change

[Dubz337]

For those not aware, Jasper National Park had to be fully evacuated due to two out of control wildfires. The entire park. All 5000 residents of the town, some 20000 tourists. Still in the process of evacuating backcountry hikers/campers. Unfortunately, both fires converged on the townsite of Jasper, which is now reporting significant loss of structures. The photos are terrible.


This is looking at the town from the Skytram.


This is the Maligne Lodge in town.


This is the visitor centre, in the middle of town.


This is Jasper Lodge, one of oldest buildings in the park.


And this is Cable Creek Drive, a community where a couple of friends of mine lived.


Jasper will always hold a special place in my soul. It’s the first place my parents took me camping, and the first place where I truly fell in love with the mountains. It has a been a different and in my opinion better experience than Banff, less touristy and more in tune with what I loved about the mountains. And now it’s gone, and the recovery will take years. It has even affected my hunting plans, as I hunt near the border of the national park a lot, and I question going after any elk or moose this year as they will have been displaced, under immense stress, and most likely suffering from lack of food due to habitat loss caused by this fire. Call me soft, call me an idiot, but as a conservationist first and hunter second, I cannot justify going after animals in these conditions.

This situation was exacerbated by the pine beetle infestation killing a large amount of spruce over the last decade that has stood as a tinderbox, but the main cause of all these wildfires has been climate change. Drought conditions, little snowpack, extreme weather events, all becoming normal in our summers now, and it leads to this. We are killing the world with our industry. This past Sunday was the hottest day in the entire world on record…until Monday, which beat it.

I understand the need for oil and gas, and natural resources, and I understand the transition will take time, but there has to be more of an effort to do so. I want my wild places to stay beautiful, I want forest fires to be a normal, necessary, and healthy part of nature, not raging infernos created by conditions directly related to our effect on the planet. What can be done? Why hasn’t more been done?

I realize this is a complex issue, and you guys in the States deal with wildfires as well. Just needing to vent, as I know people personally affected by this, and wondering how we’ve let the world get to this point in the first place.

 

[Forkyfinder]

A lack of natural fires - and not managing forests with that constaint is also a big factor.

I'm not saying i dont believe in climate change - but our hands our dirty in management approach.

 

[Dubz337]

A lack of natural fires - and not managing forests with that constaint is also a big factor.

I'm not saying i dont believe in climate change - but our hands our dirty in management approach.

Both fires that caused this were started by lightning strikes, a natural occurrence and should have led to a natural fire as you are talking about. Natural fires are encouraged in the park, and many prescribed burns are done throughout the year. But heavy drought conditions led to them becoming out of control, and at this point I find it hard not to see a correlation between drought conditions across the planet and what we are doing to cause it.

 

[publichunter1]

I was just there two weeks ago. Sad to see it happening but fires are a natural process. Doesn't make losing all the buildings and infrastructure any less devastating but natural.

What's not natural, as others has stated, is the amount of fuel on the ground to burn as we limit natures ability to burn until it combines with a drought and produces something we can't control.

Climate change is real but not in the sense most think about it. The climate has never been in a steady state. The 1900s were the wettest on record for this part of the world looking at paleoclimate records. This is not to say we aren't screwing some things up with all of our emissions/releases and so forth but climate is and always will be changing.

Prayers for all those affected by these events. Just saw another fire started between Banff and Jasper along the Icefield Parkway.

 

[Dubz337]

I was just there two weeks ago. Sad to see it happening but fires are a natural process. Doesn't make losing all the buildings and infrastructure any less devastating but natural.

What's not natural, as others has stated, is the amount of fuel on the ground to burn as we limit natures ability to burn until it combines with a drought and produces something we can't control.

Climate change is real but not in the sense most think about it. The climate has never been in a steady state. The 1900s were the wettest on record for this part of the world looking at paleoclimate records. This is not to say we aren't screwing some things up with all of our emissions/releases and so forth but climate is and always will be changing.

Prayers for all those affected by these events. Just saw another fire started between Banff and Jasper along the Icefield Parkway.

Climate changes are natural yes, but not at the pace being driven by human industry. Transitions between ice ages on this continent were spread over tens of thousands of years, for example. The natural world has ebbs and flows, but the time it takes for them to happen is immense. The change in our planet since the industrial revolution is a breakneck pace that cant be sustained.

I'm 34. Lived in Alberta all my life, a place closer to the North Pole than the equator. Back in my childhood, the amount of 30 degree celsius (86 degrees fahrenheit) days in the summer would be 4 or 5 at most, combining all summer months. In Calgary, we just had nine consecutive days over 30 degrees, this month alone will have over 15. Changes like this, this quickly, over mere decades, aren't naturally occurring.

And yup, another fire between Jasper and Banff now. Also another 60km away from Calgary that is currently classified as out of control.

 

[Dubz337]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1816494189338566866

Taken this morning.

 

[SaskHunter]

Sad to see another town destroyed.

Things are replaceable, people are not! Glad the evacuation order came in when it did! Long road ahead for the people of Jasper and unfortunately possibly others, this year's fire season is still young and already way ahead of previous year's average.

 

[Dubz337]

Crazy how the church is gone yet the pine right beside it is untouched.

 

[publichunter1]

Jasper itself is a true tragedy. Thankful they were able to evacuate everyone but praying for all of those impacted and working on the situation.

As far as your other comments, like I said, not saying we aren't impacting it and we should always try to make the least impact possible. We may even be headed to the driest hottest time ever but as of now these spikes and dry periods have been seen before in North America during our period of record. Maybe not in that specific location but in North America for sure.

This is not my image and no I did not do the research to confirm it's accuracy but this is a good reference of how temps can adjust locally.

 

[Oak]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1816494189338566866

Taken this morning.

Terrible to see. Looks like the rain arrived just a few hours too late.

I drove the Icefield Parkway between Banff and Jasper last month. It's one of the most spectacular landscapes I've ever laid eyes on.

 

[Dubz337]

Jasper itself is a true tragedy. Thankful they were able to evacuate everyone but praying for all of those impacted and working on the situation.

As far as your other comments, like I said, not saying we aren't impacting it and we should always try to make the least impact possible. We may even be headed to the driest hottest time ever but as of now these spikes and dry periods have been seen before in North America during our period of record. Maybe not in that specific location but in North America for sure.

This is not my image and no I did not do the research to confirm it's accuracy but this is a good reference of how temps can adjust locally.

View attachment 334110

Not saying that this data isn't true, or saying that what you re stating is incorrect. There's always gonna be fluctuations in temperature caused by a myriad of things. But a better measurement would be sustained high temps, and changes in temp averages, rather than high temp records. Also interesting that all these high temps, for every state pictured, are after the second Industrial Revolution, when we started using gas as a fuel resource. Climate records do date back prior to this.

 

[gouch]

So sorry to see this happening. I know only too well the rath of a wildfire.

A couple of days ago I was talking to my daughter's new man about morel picking in a fresh burn. I told him about a burn I was working in back in 1985 and about the ridiculous amount of mushrooms. Then it hit me. That was a 10,000-acre fire. That was an unprecedented size at the time. 10,000-acre fires were once in a generation events. Now just 40 years later a 10,000-acre fire doesn't even get honorable mention. Some of the fires around here now days burn that much in one day. Things are changing and changing fast.

 

[BigHornRam]

Not saying that this data isn't true, or saying that what you re stating is incorrect. There's always gonna be fluctuations in temperature caused by a myriad of things. But a better measurement would be sustained high temps, and changes in temp averages, rather than high temp records. Also interesting that all these high temps, for every state pictured, are after the second Industrial Revolution, when we started using gas as a fuel resource. Climate records do date back prior to this.

Good 20 minute video to watch if you have the time.

 

[mtlilguy]

Don't count out your hunting spots just yet. The food sources will be there for them a lot quicker than you think. There will be areas of sterilized soil that wont have much more than forbs growing there for a couple of years, but other areas will have grass, forbs and even trees/shrubs growing back before the snow flies. Security cover in the form of trees will be way less than it was before, but it will still be there.

 

[glass eye]

Droughts and fires have existed as far back as recorded history goes and beyond. Everything is blamed on climate change and I'm sick of that drumbeat.
Shark attacks have increased and they blame it on climate change. They don't explain how but it fits their agenda. SMH

 

[rjthehunter]

It's a bummer that the fire took out a town.

That being said, nothing looks abnormal when you compare the current temp trends to a million or even 500 million years ago.

 

[Dubz337]

Don't count out your hunting spots just yet. The food sources will be there for them a lot quicker than you think. There will be areas of sterilized soil that wont have much more than forbs growing there for a couple of years, but other areas will have grass, forbs and even trees/shrubs growing back before the snow flies. Security cover in the form of trees will be way less than it was before, but it will still be there.

Oh I know forests in recovery are great grounds for hunting. But this summer, right after this, I think I'll give the big ungulates a break, and just go after a couple whitetails on grazing leases around town, and call it good.

 

[Dubz337]

Knew this thread would bring out the climate change deniers, and thats fine. If you want to be willingly blind to whats happening, who am I to stop you.

 

[theat]

Very sad to see such a unique little town destroyed. I always take a quick stop in Jasper on my way to and from Alaska and have also been doing backpacking/packrafting trips in Jasper and Banff the past few years. I have a big trip panned about 30-40 miles south of Jasper later this summer. The parks up there do seem to do a pretty good job with controlled burns. Twice now I have had to change my plans and go to a different area due to large burn operations in Banff and Jasper. These pics are from a late august trip near the Banff/Jasper border last summer. I had planned this route for the previous summer, but had to postpone a year due to a controlled burn closure. You can see the burn scar in the last couple pics.

 

[rjthehunter]

Knew this thread would bring out the climate change deniers, and thats fine. If you want to be willingly blind to whats happening, who am I to stop you.

You're the one who decided to blame a wildfire on climate change... What did you really expect?

This situation was exacerbated by the pine beetle infestation killing a large amount of spruce over the last decade that has stood as a tinderbox, but the main cause of all these wildfires has been climate change. Drought conditions, little snowpack, extreme weather events

You started off making sense, then derailed.

Droughts (and little snowpack for that matter) aren't caused by climate change. The amount of water on earth is constant. Just because an area is experiencing a drought, doesn't mean it's because of climate change.