The activities of the municipal government of Jasper are authorized/regulated by (among many other federal and provincial statutory instruments):
Agreement for the Establishment of Local Government in Jasper dated June 13th, 2001
edmontonjournal.com
I would say this is very accurate. My wife and I have been going to Jasper every summer for the last 10 years and anyone that was paying attention could see there was a problem. The forests were full of dead trees and the problem just kept getting worse until we ended up with this disaster. Unfortunately I expect Banff will ended up in the same situation since the feds in charge of the parks will hold endless meetings and study the problem until well after the park and/or town burn down. The minister in charge of the national parks already said they had done 'everything' possible to avoid this. To my eye his 'everything' is actually synonymous with 'nothing'.And the Federal forest management policies are 'drawing fire' now...
Opinion: 'Green' forest policy turned Jasper into a tinderbox
The recent and ongoing disaster in Jasper National Park will undoubtedly generate a slew of commentary about the inevitable effects of climate change. While I readily agree that climate change is a huge factor in the spread of wildfires, in the current instance, it is not that simple.
I believe that a major part of the immediate problem in Jasper — which could have been considerably mitigated in all of the Rocky Mountain national parks — is the Parks Canada “green” policy of protecting the forest in all of the Rocky Mountain national parks as the primary objective of all of their current policies and operational activities.
Some 25 years ago, in my capacity then as deputy minister for Community Development, including responsibility for managing Alberta provincial parks, I was personally present at a meeting with senior Parks Canada and Alberta officials. At that meeting Fred McDougall, the Alberta deputy minister of Forestry, eloquently and passionately chastised the federal officials for their lack of foresight, stating unequivocally that their commitment to maximum preservation as the cornerstone of their forestry management policy was creating an explosive situation they would live to regret.
Several years ago, Waterton Lakes National Park experienced the first direct result of that failure to adapt. Now Jasper National Park is experiencing the same fate. Can Banff National Park dodge the bullet?
I seriously doubt that it will, as all three of these parks abut significant prairie regions, which for timeless millennia directly influenced the landscapes of the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains by channeling prairie fires into the valley bottoms and adjacent uplands.
Opinion: 'Green' forest policy turned Jasper into a tinderbox
Part of the problem in Jasper is the policy of protecting the forest as the primary objective leaving artificial landscapes
reading elsewhere, and I don't remember exactly where, that the only way to properly correct the problem is with a major fire such as the one that just hit Jasper. And by blaming global warming, the feds. are ensuring that remedial action of any nature will be too little and too late. By the by, did you read where the temperatures in the Antarctic have hit all time record lows at -79?
From what I’ve been told, Jasper and Banff had referenda a few decades ago about becoming municipalities. Up to then, both towns were administered by Parks Canada. Banff chose to become a municipality and Jasper chose to remain administered by Parks Canada. Not sure if that changed since.
Apropos
Had to try to add the Alberta information up as it's not published in the same manner. So based upon what I could add up for the forest areas via the wildfire app plus some Jasper updates:
In regards to the "sortie" rate most aircraft on the incidents are flying maximums (usually 8 hours) and would be limited to any extended days by federal aviation safety rules. Air Tankers are different due to the role/readiness for new starts and I would be unable to comment.
BC also has many more rules around how heavy equipment can be used and access, not just slope, remains a major issue. If it will take several weeks to move enough of a scree slope to get the equipment up to the fire on a steep hill...it's just not an option. In Alberta topography tends to be less limiting and frankly we don't have the restriction to log the right of way prior to building guard like BC has...so much more agressive heavy equipment shows here.
