Wildfires prompt evacuation of Canada’s largest National Park

Perched amid the Canadian Rockies due west of Edmonton and northwest of Banff National Park, Jasper National Park boasts more acreage than any other National Park within Canada. With over 11,000 square kilometers within its boundaries, it contains remnants of ancient glaciers and the work they did in carving lakes, rivers, and gulches out of the towering mountains – mountains such as Mount Edith Cavell, which at over 11,000 feet is the tallest and most prominent peak in all of Alberta.

The park drew over 2.5 million visitors last year, and is off to an equally popular start in 2024. At least, it was before multiple wildfires within and around the park forced a park-wide evacuation at roughly 10 PM local time on Monday night. According to the Edmonton Journal, the park and the municipality of Jasper – home to roughly 4,700 residents – were forced to flee in a hurry and flee west, as the lone eastern road out of the park was directly in the line of the fires.

This is an Alberta Emergency Alert. The Municipality of Jasper and Jasper National Park have updated the Wildfire alert.
This alert is in effect for everyone located in Jasper and Jasper National Park.

There is a wildfire south of town. An Evacuation Order has been issued for…

— Alberta Emergency Alert (@AB_EmergAlert) July 23, 2024

Evacuation west in that remote and alpine region meant evacuation directly up, into, and over the spine of the Canadian Rockies via Highway 16, with only a remote route into eastern British Columbia a viable exit. As of Tuesday morning, more than 7,500 people were under evacuation orders within the region, including multiple communities within the Little Red River Cree Nation.

Jasper evacuation so far 2 hrs 45 min = 7 km. We heard mobile gas stations are being set up, we’re ok but we know friends are almost out of gas, and folks are sharing same. Any info or verification would be helpful. #Jasper #fire #evacuation pic.twitter.com/zALn4CqtJb

— Carolyn Campbell (@_CLCampbell) July 23, 2024

According to the Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard, there are fires outside Jasper that are burning ‘out of control’ and are among the 170 current fires burning within the province. That said, given that these new fires are on federal land (and not provincial land), there’s reason to believe there’s a lot more burning going on near the evacuation site than that map alone will indicate. On top of that, it’s hard to know just how reachable folks camping and recreating in the backcountry of the park were to the evacuation orders.

As for the current evacuations, they’re mostly being pushed west along Highway 16 into British Columbia through nearby Mount Robson Provincial Park, with the town of Valemount on Highway 5 already packed to the gills in support of evacuees. There have been reports that any attempt to get back to Calgary for park visitors who were visiting from the nearby city are now taking some 12 hours, while the quickest available route to get back to nearby Edmonton now takes 14 hours. Under non-fire conditions, both routes usually take just 3+ hours.

With data through July 17th, some 4 million acres had burned in wildfires in Canada so far in 2024, with these new starts obviously not yet factoring into those numbers. While still an alarming amount, that’s down significantly from the 27 million that had already burned through Canada at this point during 2023’s record amoun of fire activity north of the border.