Hinton Mayor Nicholas Nissen says his town has been focused on playing a supportive role in the response to the ongoing Jasper wildfires.
With the ongoing disaster only an hour’s drive away, Nissen described the last two weeks as being “reactionary” and “supportive” with one of the main goals being to give responders the space to work.
“Despite a couple days of some scary looking clouds and a lot of smoke and a lot of first responders and a lot of hectic and frantic activity, there was never any risk to our town,” Nissen said in an interview with the Fitzhugh.
“Our job is to really support the response, and a big part of supporting that response is just everybody getting out of the way.”
While Nissen hasn’t been directly involved with the wildfire response, he did tour the Jasper townsite over a week ago with Premier Danielle Smith and Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland, describing the visit as “surreal.”
“It was devastating to watch what Mayor Ireland had to go through in front of media cameras. That was difficult to watch, but it reiterated for me the supporting role that Hinton has to play.
“It's a terrible thing that's happened to our neighbouring community, and it is our job and our responsibility to show up and be as neighbourly as possible going forward because it's going to take time, it's going to be hard work and everyone is going to need our support to get through this and to get through the recovery and the rebuild phase of the situation.”
The past two weeks have seen Hinton house and feed first responders and other staff, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paying a visit to the community to receive a briefing on the wildfires.
Hinton currently hosts the command centre for the wildfire response.
In addition, Parks Canada has set up a work camp west of town, and the Canadian Armed Forces dispatched by the federal government are now occupying the Duncan Murray Recreation Centre.
“And that’s the most important contribution that Hinton has made to this effort so far, is by providing a safe staging area for the response, and then by everyone else getting out of the way and helping out taking care of the evacuees,” Nissen said.
“It’s not about us here in Hinton. It's about helping our neighbours and helping the responders and being the supportive resource we need to be at the moment we're needed and the rest of the time just being out of the way.”
While Hinton has focused on supporting the responders, most evacuees have been heading to reception centres in Grande Prairie, Calgary and Edmonton.
Nissen said it was the Jasper Emergency Coordination Centre that ultimately determined where reception centres were set up.
“As soon as it became clear that the vast majority of evacuees were headed west and not coming towards Hinton, we were stood down on setting up a reception centre because we obviously weren't going to be receiving anybody,” the mayor said.
“We did get seven families that came through and got set up with hotel rooms and accommodations and meal vouchers and all that supports the first night of the evacuation.”
Hinton also had free camping for evacuees and saw campers in the early days, and while there wasn’t much uptake afterward, the town has begun to see campers come back as Jasper residents return to the area.
Highway 16 also reopened on Monday (Aug. 5) to allow evacuees to travel from British Columbia back to Alberta.
The Town of Hinton has offered free recreation passes, free bus passes and library programming, and Hinton FSCC is offering support.
The Hinton and District Chamber of Commerce has also put together a list of resources, offers and discounts available to evacuees.
Nissen noted the wildfires have had a complicated impact on local businesses and that it depended on the sector.
Several businesses, particularly those with heavy equipment, got into work contracts right away, and some of the hotels are fully booked due to the influx of responders and evacuees.
Other businesses have been negatively impacted by tourism cancellations and plan changes.
“This is the fourth year in a row where we've had major disruption to everybody’s plans,” Nissen said.
“The situation is going to continue to be fluid, and our businesses are going to have to continue to adapt to changing circumstances.”
Nissen could not speak on what the long-term impacts would look like for the town but promised Jasper evacuees that they would be welcomed in Hinton.
“Our community is coming out in force to support your recovery, and we're very, very much looking forward to welcoming you to our community. We know that this is a difficult time. We fully empathize, and we're here to help.”
