Evidence of meeting #125 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was witnesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
In the case of this catastrophic fire, the main force of the fire came from the south. Is that correct?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
To your knowledge, was there any significant clear-cutting or any mitigation efforts on the south side of Jasper to protect the town?
As an Individual
Not specifically for addressing the mountain pine beetle.... The answer would be no.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
With your extensive experience with the mountain pine beetle, and not knowing what Parks Canada would have known about the mountain pine beetle, was there enough done to mitigate and clear the dead brush of mountain pine beetle that would have prevented...? We saw explosions of bark sending embers kilometres away. Was there enough done on the south end of the park? I think you've already kind of answered that.
As an Individual
I kind of answered that. To my knowledge, I'm not aware of any work that had been done to the south, outside of when they spent a significant amount of funds redoing the Wabasso campsite. There was major work done there.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
They spent a significant amount on a campsite, but not as much on actually protecting the town.
In your opinion—and you alluded to this in your remarks—you don't believe that Parks Canada necessarily has the expertise to manage forests in our national parks. Can you elaborate on that?
As an Individual
We had a number of meetings with Parks Canada, myself and Mr. Begin. We worked together to send letters out and see what we could do to help with our experience. We did talk to the staff, and it became quite obvious to us that they just didn't have the experience or the knowledge in relation to the issues that were facing them.
For the large mountain pine beetle, they did come up with a plan in 2016, but it was basically too little, too late on that particular aspect. I don't think they really understood what was in front of them and the magnitude of the fire that was going to blow up at them because of that.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB
We've had Parks Canada here, and we've had the minister of environment here. They claim that everything that could possibly have been done to prevent this.... We had a member tweeting that all the efforts that could have been made to clear the dead brush were made.
Did the government do everything they could have done to prevent these fires from happening?
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.
This is a conversation that needs to be had. I know there's going to be an in-depth investigation into the Jasper wildfire complex by those who were there and involved, but it's good to get an overview from you.
Mr. Hargrove, you stated that given the historical and cultural nature of some of the buildings, as well as the vegetation in the town of Jasper, it was quite a feat that they saved as much of the town as they did. I think it was about 70%. Could you elaborate on that a little bit?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources
Sure. Maybe I'll start and then turn to Dr. Thompson.
The fire started roughly 20 kilometres from the community, so fuel treatments were done over time that did reduce the intensity of the fire as it approached the town. Those risks were known, as folks have discussed, and a great deal of fuel management was done in those areas.
Our field observations immediately after the fire—and Dr. Thompson can speak to that in more detail—showed that the fuel reduction treatments were effective in preventing a continuous running crown fire. There are different types of wildland fire. Some travel sort of lower to the ground, and some travel among the crowns of the trees. Those that travel among the crowns of the trees are the ones that are particularly intense and throw embers and create those kinds of risks. What the team found was that the fuel treatments that were done did have the effect of reducing that intensity and reducing the crown fire risk.
Maybe I'll turn to Dr. Thompson to add to that.
Prof. Dan Thompson Research Scientist, Forest Fires, Department of Natural Resources
Thank you.
In some wildland fires, we observe what we call an “ember shower”. If you see a kid's trampoline or tarps in a yard, all these little spots are indicative of the embers landing on flammable surfaces that melt but don't actually combust.
We conducted observations of the fuel treatments near the railroad, on the south side of town, along the highway and, basically, between town and Whistlers Campground. I would ask for maps from Parks Canada, because we don't have those right in front of us. I wasn't responsible for mapping that. We did walk through those fuel treatments, and we did document about a 70% reduction in the frequency of trees actually burning.
The type of fire we observed while we walked through those recently burned stands was what we call “surface fire”. There were some trees that were burning, but the primary mode of that fire was to travel along the surface, without producing that number of embers. When we went to look at the tarps, both in the parks compound and in the middle of the community, we did not see that ember shower that we observed in places like Slave Lake in 2011 or in Fort McMurray. I was there after the fact in Fort McMurray, and I saw an ember shower. Despite looking in many places, we did not see the same intensity of ember shower in Jasper, despite similarly severe fire weather. The underlying drought conditions were similar.
We have the evidence, and we're happy to show some evidence that, for the 500-metre buffer around the community where there was that fuel treatment, we did not document the same ember shower. Some embers did ignite some structures, but not with the same intensity.
Liberal
Research Scientist, Forest Fires, Department of Natural Resources
Sure.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Do you feel that the unified command and the firefighters on the ground there were prepared to fight this fire?
I also want to ask about the nature of the fire. It was apparently a cyclone of fire, given the winds that came up because of the fire. It was very unusual.
Mr. Hodges, in some of the comments you made in the press, you said that you didn't know whether the fire could have been prevented. This was even before knowing what kind of fire it was.
Given that this was a very unusual fire that was exacerbated by climate change, I'm just wondering whether people were prepared. Did they know what to do here, and could they have anticipated what was going to happen?
Research Scientist, Forest Fires, Department of Natural Resources
I can only speak to the scientific tools that we provide to fire managers to prepare them for the situation.
One of the things that one does in fire management is track the weather and track the precipitation. In our systems of fire management and fire weather, Parks Canada, in our national public maps, did show the severe drought conditions and the acceleration of the fire from the lightning strikes to becoming a crown fire within minutes, which is what we see from the photo documentation of the fire.
That was anticipated by the systems that fire managers use every day. The fire accelerated and burned largely as anticipated given the environmental conditions.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Okay. The scientists at Parks Canada did know what was coming. You said that you did do some clearing, fuel treatments, on the south side of town as well to try to buffer and to protect the town.
Research Scientist, Forest Fires, Department of Natural Resources
NRCan is not responsible for that, but to my understanding.... I walked through the science-based fuel treatments that Parks Canada did conduct, yes.
Liberal
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Mr. Hodges, I'm just wondering about your background. From what I understand, you worked with industry to basically plan how to harvest the forest. Do you feel that you have the scientific background to be able to assess what happened during this fire in Jasper?
As an Individual
I have operational experience that can address that, but scientifically, I'm not a scientist, like I said. I'm not a researcher. It's operational experience that I provide.
