Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the UCP government will be bringing in arson investigators from outside the province to trace the cause of the wildfires..In an interview with Real Talk Ryan Jespersen, Smith said she is concerned about arson when it comes to about 175 wildfires in Alberta with no known cause..Jespersen mentioned to Smith that the hot and dry conditions that allow fires to grow are part of a "changing climate."."We've had experts on the show telling us that arson is not a leading cause of wildfires based on the science," Jespersen said..Smith told Jespersen she thinks he is watching the same number of stories about arson in the province as she is.."I'm very concerned that there are arsonists," Smith said.."And there have been stories as well, that we're investigating and we're bringing in arson investigators from outside the province.".Smith said Alberta had almost 175 fires with no known cause at the moment.."Sometimes it's very easy to trace. When you have lightning storms. It's easy to trace when you have a train derailment that's easy to trace or a campfire," Smith said.."But to have 175 fires that we don't know the cause of that's unusual.".Smith then admitted the UCP has to do a better job as a government in making sure it is building fireguards.."I think that is an issue that we had faced because there's a lot of communities that we know from what happened in Slave Lake and what happened in Fort McMurray," Smith said.."You have to make sure that when a forest fire begins that it doesn't jump over into a town or a city because that's when you end up with real trouble. And so I think we did a fantastic job this time around making sure that we had good integration with the local firefighting units, as well as with our own forest firefighters."
