While the Jasper wildfire remains out of control, Parks Canada says progress has been made in protecting the community of Jasper from further damage.
“We have received a little bit of rain that allowed us to again direct on the fire line on all the priority areas that we’ve been working on. Just gives us more safety that we’re not as concerned and we are making progress towards securing the fire around the community of Jasper,” said Landon Shepherd, deputy incident commander for Parks Canada.
Shepherd saying Tuesday they’re expecting the fire season to continue into early November, adding the focus now is ensuring the fire doesn’t flare up.
“We are getting closer and closer to being able to call the area close to the community being held,” said Sheppard.
Christie Tucker, the information unit manager, for Alberta Wildfire added, “It’s not unusual for a large-scale fire to take weeks, months and sometimes even you know more than a year to fully extinguish a wildfire.”
While there is still no timeline for residents to return to Jasper, workers at a limited number of critical retail services were allowed into the town Tuesday to do an initial assessment of the damage in preparation for resuming services.
“Starting yesterday, owners and operators of critical services such as gas stations, grocery stores, pharmacies, and banks are being contacted and scheduled to view their business to assess the damage,” said Joe Zatylny, the deputy managing director for Alberta Emergency Management Agency.
On Monday, Alberta’s premier said she asked the federal government to consider additional funding under the $4 billion housing accelerator fund to help Jasper take on additional land planning responsibilities. Smith also stresses the significance of temporary housing in the town.
“We know that there’s some work to do collaboratively to figure out temporary housing, because not only is that to be important for the residents who lost their homes but also the seasoning workers,” explained Premier Smith.
In the meantime, the bus tours viewings for Jasper residents started Monday for those whose homes were damaged or destroyed.
“Yesterday, three bus tours of the Jasper townsite were scheduled and took place, one from Edmonton and two from Hinton. Today we have one tour that we’ll be departing from Hinton and we anticipate from Valemount and Edmonton to happen tomorrow as scheduled,” said Zatylny.