The federal government has not said whether any new fire prevention measures have been taken in national parks following the devastating 2024 wildfire that destroyed one-third of Jasper, Alberta and caused $1.2 billion in insured losses. Blacklock's Reporter says Conservative MP Dane Lloyd (Parkland, Alta.) told the House of Commons that the tragedy highlighted failures in forest management, especially the failure to clear large swaths of dead pine trees.“In the wake of the Jasper fire we learned about the devastating consequences of poor forest management that failed to clear swaths of dead forests,” said Lloyd, warning that communities in other national parks such as Banff now face similar risks. .He pressed the government to explain what, if anything, Parks Canada has done to protect Canadians from another disaster.Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski responded only by saying, “There is nothing more important than keeping Canadians safe,” without mentioning fire mitigation in national parks.Documents show that prior to the July 24 fire, Parks Canada had not conducted any significant controlled burns or removals of dead pine trees in Jasper National Park, despite acknowledging the elevated fire risk posed by a massive beetle infestation. Access To Information records revealed that 577,000 acres of dead pine were left standing in the year leading up to the blaze, and just 1,529 acres had been cleared over the preceding four years..Despite warnings from Parks Canada itself, including testimony in 2020 that “dead trees and fuel load” were a serious concern, little action was taken. Vice-president Darlene Upton had told a Commons committee the agency was “ramping up” efforts, but records show no meaningful follow-through.After the fire, then-Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan deflected blame from forest management, attributing the disaster to climate change. “Sadly the community of Jasper was a victim of this,” he said.A 2022 Parks Canada management plan specifically called for “wildfire risk reduction measures around the Jasper townsite,” noting that nearly half the park’s pine forest — 44% — had been killed by beetles. But by the time of the fire, prescribed burning had still “not yet been applied,” and tree cutting had only been conducted in “a small area,” according to a 2022 implementation report.
