Jasper used to burn often. Why did that change when it became a national park?
Decades of work to suppress fires in Jasper National Park may have inadvertently contributed to conditions that fed a devastating wildfire that ripped through Jasper in July, experts say.
The fire, which burned down one-third of the buildings in the Jasper townsite, was the largest in the national park in over 100 years, according to Parks Canada. The fire consumed more than 33,000 hectares before it was classified as being held.
While fires are not uncommon in Canada's Rocky Mountains, studies suggest the number and size of fires has significantly decreased over the last century, including in Jasper National Park, largely due to suppression.
"We conclude fire suppression has altered the fire regime and reduced resilience of the mountain forests in Jasper National Park," Raphael Chavardes and Lori Daniels wrote in a 2016 research paper.
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The paper was part of Chavardes's master's degree at the University of British Columbia and Daniels was his supervisor.
Chavardes studied the forest 12 kilometres north of the Jasper townsite. He now works for the Canadian Forest Service as a fire risk and resilience research scientist.
By detecting fire scars on the cross-section of trees that were more than 400 years old, Chavardes determined there had been no fires in his study area for 100 years.
However, Chavardes said, prior to Jasper becoming protected in 1907 by the federal government, the forest burned about every 40 to 60 years, on average.
"There's a rich history of fire in the park," he said.
Chavardes studied the fire history of the national park by using cross-sections of trees that were more than 400 years old. This cross-section was collected from a Douglas-fir tree in the Jasper townsite valley with an estimated establishment year of 1596. Scars were formed by surface fires in 1646, 1677, 1772, and 1827. (Raphael Chavardes)
Fire suppression, exclusion
Fire records for the park show there were large fires in the valley around what is now the townsite in 1758, 1847 and 1889, and a smaller one in 1905, according to a 1979 study by Gerald Tande, a researcher at the University of Alberta.
After that it was relatively fire-free for decades.
The Chetamon wildfire, about 15 km north of the townsite, burned about 6,000 ha. in 2022 and severed power to the community for several days. It had been the largest fire in the area in decades until this year's massive blaze.
More than 100 years after the building of the townsite, the park is a top tourism destination that brings millions of people to the area.
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The lack of fires for more than a century was likely due to fire exclusion and suppression by Parks Canada, said Chavardes.
"It was to protect timber and stop fires from burning," he said.
Indigenous people used fire for thousands of years to maintain areas for hunting and grow medicine.
In the early 1900s, Jasper was home to a number of Métis families, including the Moberlys.
The Moberlys used fire to make travelling easier for hunting, clear brush and provide good grass habitat for their stock to feed on, according to an interview with a Moberly descendent by University of Alberta staff in 1980.
The family was evicted from the area when Jasper became a park.
Soon after, fire and game wardens were hired and instructed to put out all wildfires.
With hoses, fire trucks and sprinklers, stopping wildfire became easier.
Forest fire near Medicine Lake in Jasper National Park in 1936. (Jasper Yellowhead Museum and Archives)
Efforts to suppress fires in forested areas have been ongoing since before the Second World War, said Mark Boyce, a professor of ecology at the University of Alberta.
"We didn't really have the technology to do it very well before that," Boyce said.
A 1995 article in Park's Canada Research Links magazine notes that after 1945, "in response to a dramatic increase in the number of visitors to Canadian national parks, Parks Canada embarked on a "protection" stage of management … [and] the job of park management was seen as protecting parks from threats such as poaching, trampling, and fire."
With fewer fires, vegetation began to change.
In 1915, large areas of the park consisted of patchy vegetation, with grasslands, juvenile trees, open forest and more deciduous trees.
Eighty years later, half the grasslands were gone, replaced by homogeneous thick forest, according to a 2002 study by Jeanine Rhemtulla, a forestry professor at UBC.
The changes can be seen in historic photographs.
DON'T MISS: Jasper National Park remains closed indefinitely, re-entry limited to residents
The Mountain Legacy Project has photographed Jasper's changing forests, by retaking original images that were captured more than 100 years ago from key locations throughout the park.
The photos show a progression from grasslands and open forests to thick closed woods, splashed red due to numerous trees killed by pine beetles.
Without fire, dead trees and branches can build up on the forest floor, providing more fuel for larger, hotter blazes.
"We set up a situation that is explosive," Boyce said.
While the dead wood can be removed and the forest thinned, that alone may not be the best option, he said.
"These forests are naturally maintained by fire," said Boyce.
Wildfires create a patchy landscape, where clumps of trees can vary in age, depending on whether they burned or not, creating different kinds of habitats, which benefits wildlife, Boyce said.
Without fire, trees continue to grow and persist, eventually creating what Chavardes refers to as ladder fuels. That's where fire on the forest floor can climb into the canopy of the trees, creating an even more powerful and severe blaze.
The Cabin Creek neighbourhood on the west end of the Jasper townsite is almost completely destroyed. (Liam Harrap/CBC)
Additionally, many of the trees in the Jasper forest were dead due to pine beetle.
Couple that with high winds, hot temperatures, no rain and low humidity, and it can lead to very favourable fire conditions, said Chavardes.
In the weeks leading up to the Jasper wildfire, the area was in the middle of a heat wave, with most days soaring into the 30s with no rain. On July 21, the day before the fire started, it reached 38 C.
Overall, he is not surprised at how large and powerful the fire got that destroyed a significant portion of the Jasper townsite last month.
Given the history of fire in the park, July's wildfire could have been predicted, he said.
In a 2018 interview, two B.C. researchers said Jasper was due for a catastrophic forest fire.
"It's a matter of when, not if," Emile Begin told CBC's Radio Active.
Bringing fire back
In recent years, Parks Canada has committed to restoring fire to the landscape, sometimes using prescribed burns.
This year alone, Parks Canada planned four burns in Jasper National Park, including one near the town.
Since 1994, Parks Canada has conducted 45 prescribed fires in Jasper, burning a total area of 4,600 hectares, Ron Hallman, CEO of Parks Canada, said in an interview on Edmonton AM.
As well, another 1,700 hectares of forest in the park has been mechanically removed, Hallman said.
Going forward, if Parks Canada determines there are still fire hazards around what remains of town, more of the forest could be removed, he said.
Some plants are already growing back in burned areas near the Town of Jasper. (CBC/Liam Harrap)
Life from fire
Regardless, suppressing fires over the past century has caused a significant decline in ecosystem health and species diversity, according to Parks Canada.
That's because fires can increase biodiversity as some species rely on it to reproduce, like Lodgepole pine as its cones are sealed with a waxy coating.
As they heat up from fire, the cones pop open "like popcorn," said Chavardes.
The species can then abundantly regenerate with young saplings.
"Areas can be burned on purpose to stimulate regrowth, but also reduce the intensity of future fires," said Boyce.
Burned forest is also much less likely to burn for the next five decades,because of a lack of available fuel such as dead branches and trees, Boyce said.
Boyce predicts that by this time next year, areas of the burned forest in Jasper will be a lush green, with lots of new vegetation, providing highly nutritious food for many different animals, like bear and moose.
"Fires create a lot of variation," said Boyce.
"It's really attractive to wildlife."
Thumbnail image credit to Mountain Legacy Project via CBC News.
This article, written by Liam Harrap, was originally published for CBC News.
