BANFF NATIONAL PARK – Parks Canada fire crews are on standby around the clock and a helicopter is ready to be deployed in the event a wildfire starts in Banff National Park during this period of extreme fire danger.
Fire experts say a fire management plan dictates the national park’s level of preparedness at various stages of the fire hazard rating scale, noting Banff jumped from high to extreme on July 22.
“When we’re in extreme, we have fire crews that are on standby 24 hours, including a fire duty officer that's there to respond to any smoke reports that we receive from the public and or staff,” said Jane Park, fire and vegetation specialist for Banff National Park.
“We generally try to have aircraft on site here in case we do get a fire and we’re coordinating with our partner agencies in the province as well as internally within Parks Canada.”
Park said fire duty officers monitor weather throughout the day and lightning detection equipment allows them to keep an eye on incoming lightning storms that may spark new fires.
“Once the lightning is passed, the crews will focus their smoke flights in areas that we know lightning has occurred,” she said.
“We can see whether or not the lightning has started any new fires.”
Several illegal fires have been reported to Parks Canada in Banff National Park this summer, including near the Banff townsite, along the Trans-Canada Highway, by the Legacy Trail, and close to campgrounds.
Park said crews have responded to extinguish them, noting none of the illegal fires have held over or caused a problem so far.
“It usually ranges between people illegally camping or having recreational illegal fires,” she said.
“They’re usually small enough that we're able to respond and just put them out, but definitely we’re concerned when we have these conditions.”
At least two lightning-sparked wildfires began in Banff National Park this year, including one on Fairview Mountain near Lake Louise earlier in July and one near Protection Mountain in May – and both were extinguished quickly before they grew.
Unlike neighbouring Kootenay National Park where most fires are sparked by lightning, largely influenced by the Continental Divide and lifting of air masses as low pressure systems track from British Columbia into Alberta, Banff essentially sits within a distinct lightning shadow.
“We tend to not get as many lightning strikes on this side of the mountains near Banff,” said Park.
“We get a lot more illegal fires, or historically, there were cultural burns that happened."
Canada is experiencing the worst fire season in the modern record in terms of area burned.
For the national parks, the wildfire season started with less snow than average over winter and a rapid snow melt in spring with warmer weather.
Park said Banff has received significant rain of between 40 and 60 millimetres in some areas over the last couple of weeks, which has somewhat helped the situation.
“We are an extreme again, and that deeper, persistent drought in the soil has had some relief from a bit of rain, but as we continue through the summer and things continue to dry out, it just continues to be dry,” she said.
“And this year, we're also seeing a lot of quite extreme fire behaviour in terms of heavy winds and really hot and dry conditions with really high temperatures and low relative humidity – and we’re seeing that all across Canada.”
Climate change is and will continue to play a devastating role.
Park said the climate modelling indicates the fire seasons will be longer.
“They’ll start earlier and they’ll go longer and we'll have more of these periods of drought, which will lead to more days where fires that do start can burn for longer periods of time,” she said.
“When you couple that with the build-up of fuels on the landscape from 100 years of fire exclusion, you know that means that it'll likely turn into larger fires that are harder to control and burn more severely.”
Currently, there is no fire ban in Banff National Park as Parks Canada’s established indices has not been reached to do so.
Banff only allows fires in designated Parks Canada fire pits, like the ones in campgrounds and day-use areas. This is always the case outside of a fire ban, which is similar to what the province of Alberta calls a fire restriction.
“At the moment we're not quite at the threshold for a fire ban, but as things dry out and the longer we go without significant rain, we may eventually be in that situation,” said Park.
“It’s still drying out and I'm not going to rule it out.”
When fires are lit in the designated fire pits, residents and visitors are reminded to extinguish them before they leave.
“The fire conditions this year are particularly challenging and we have resources being deployed all over Canada, so we really don't want additional starts at this point in this fire season,” said Park.
In neighbouring Alberta provincial lands, the Calgary Forest Area (CFA) issued a fire restriction for the southern portion of the region on Wednesday (July 26), while a fire advisory remains in effect for the northern area.
Under the fire restriction, all outdoor wood fires and charcoal briquettes in backcountry and random camping areas on public land are prohibited.
Campfires are allowed only in engineered rings in designated campgrounds in southern portions of the CFA and in both campgrounds and random camping areas in northern portions of the CFA.
The average wildfire danger in the CFA remains extreme. The CFA region includes the Bow Valley outside Banff National Park and the Bow Valley.
Although a few stations measured a small amount of precipitation overnight on Tuesday (July 23), fire officers say it was not enough to make any real impact on the wildfire danger beyond the very short term.
“It is expected that the wildfire danger will remain extreme for the foreseeable future,” said Anastasia Drummond, a wildfire information officer for the CFA.
Since January 1, 2023, there have been 915 wildfires recorded in the Forest Protection Area of Alberta that have burned 1,751,518.12 hectares.
There are currently 133 active wildfires, including 16 classified as out of control, 50 are being held and 67 are under control.
