STIRLING: Jasper wildfire dust-up leads to climate change report revelations

As the anniversary of the catastrophic Jasper wildfire arrived, the Municipality of Jasper just issued a report titled, “2024 Jasper Wildfire Complex Municipal After-Action Review.” Though it was intended to be a “lessons learned” document, a single sentence (pg. 37) said that the province of Alberta “created political challenges that disrupted the focus of Incident Commanders, leading to time spent managing inquiries and issues instead of directing the wildfire response and re-entry.” Pundits and critics jumped on this sentence. Provincial NDP leader Naheed Nenshi issued a scathing letter, posted on X, claiming that “The Jasper Wildfire review is damningly clear about one thing: the UCP government exploited a life-and-death moment to play political games.” .Premier Danielle Smith has demanded that Jasper apologize and retract the report. Indeed, as of July 21, 2025, the Municipality of Jasper issued a two-page press release detailing and praising the vast scope of Alberta’s provincial support for Jasper during and after the wildfire, posted by Deputy Premier and Minister of Public Safety Mike Ellis on his X feed.Jasper National Park is managed by the federal Parks Canada; confusingly, the Jasper townsite is a provincial municipality in Alberta.The After-Action report explicitly stated off the top that, “This review does not include: Assessment of the effectiveness of the federal Parks Canada's response…” thus it does appear that Alberta was unfairly singled out. .This is especially so, in light of what I found in Jasper’s Climate Change Risk Assessment Report, issued on Jan. 18, 2024. I was shocked.Jasper residents’ number one “climate” concern was wildfire. “The community expressed that chronic stress/fear is associated with previous fires and growing pine beetle populations that exacerbate risk [by killing trees, leaving easily lit fuel load for wildfires.]”In response, “Parks Canada expressed that the actual risk of fire is less than the public perception.” In fact, though Jasper citizens had ranked wildfire as a hazard “5” (out of 5,) the ranking was reduced to a “4” based on Parks Canada’s rather blasé view of the risk..In reality, the Jasper wildfire was not a matter of ‘if’ … but when. Based on remarks to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development on Oct. 09, 2024, by Ken Hodges, an experienced forester who had, for years, advocated for serious fuel load mitigation work, Parks Canada were out of their league. People were truly afraid of a mega-fire.Parks Canada had established two firefighting teams in Jasper to cover the 1-million+ ha of Jasper National Park. But… the town was surrounded by 93,000 ha of dead and dying pine from the Mountain Pine Beetle infestation. That is about 10-million m³ of fuel — larger than the annual allowable cut of Alberta Forests.About 32,000 ha or 4% of the forested area of the park burned in 2024. Across Canada, various climate activists are exploiting the anniversary of the Jasper wildfire to make hay on the climate file. .The Canadian Climate Institute has issued a number of wildfire commentaries recently. (It is a registered charity funded by the federal government — $6.6 million, or 79.76 per cent of its budget, according to CRA filings.)In fact, as climate policy analyst Roger Pielke, Jr. explains, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has not attributed wildfire frequency or area burned to human-caused climate change. It is only climate activists who love to conflate the fire and the fear to coerce your compliance.Last year there was a flurry of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) exploiting the Jasper wildfire to blame Big Oil and Gas and demand a cap on emissions and a national climate disaster agency. Similar activism surfaced this week from government funded media like the National Observer. There, Chris Hatch (husband of Tzeporah Berman, promoter of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty) urged media and government to tie climate change as the missing journalistic “why” of wildfire. He also cited Prof. Katharine Hayhoe who referenced a new report in Nature Climate Change which encourages activists to make the connection: “simple exposure to extreme weather events does not affect people’s view of climate action — but linking those events to climate change can make a big difference.”.Even Tim Hodgson, federal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, chose this timing to announce the Wildfire Resilience Consortium of Canada with $11.7 million over four years, as part of the fulfillment of the G7 Kananaskis Wildfire Charter.Wildfires happen regionally and locally, often right in your backyard. Maybe your cedar hedge will burn down your whole neighbourhood? Maybe your wooden fence and mulch bed? Yes. It can be that simple.Ironically, Hatch states, “Until we name the cause, we can't address it.”The homes and businesses in Jasper were not burnt down by climate change nor by a frightening wall of fire, but by firebrands — an ember storm that found a home or dead tree with flammable material. Whoosh! Lightning started the fire; unmanaged dead trees provided fuel to feed it. The wind lofted ember storms miles away.We don’t need a G7 wildfire resilience centre when we already know so much about how to mitigate wildfires, and we just don’t do it. FireSmart your home and communities yourself. Here’s how. Download the FireSmart guide and just do it. Consult with provincial FireSmart agencies to understand what specific local recommendations or programs are available.Federal and provincial governments are lavishing some $476 billion of your money (2020-2030, maybe more to come) on climate action and paltry millions on wildfire mitigation. Two recent polls show that people don’t care about climate action anymore.The climate cult is dying. Expect more senseless hysterical climate exploitation of tragedies like Jasper. In the meantime, take real FireSmart action. Protect yourself.(With files from Rob Scagel.)