To be fair to Jasper National Park...
The preferred mechanism would be prescribed burns...and they did conduct many low intensity burns primarily north of the community.
Unfortunately due to the challanges and risk of prescribe burns this was not an option on the west side or east side to the same degree....which is why they brought in commercial scale logging to address areas adjacent to the community. This was done on the NW side of town and when the project proposal first came in we were in dis-belief that it was even being considered.. But not only was it considered it was also completed prior to the fire.
Of course the work done was not everywhere....and the fire started south of the town where treatments were not done.
1.5 months before the fire I was there in the same area as the fire to the south...and just shook my head at how impossible the task was when the entire valley was full of dead material...much of it on slopes you can't operate on well.
There is also a whole federal issue on the economic draw and budget implications of tourism vs. expenditures. A significant portion of the National Park budget comes from tourism dollars primarily in Jasper, Banff and Pacific Rim (by Tofino on Vancouver Island). In fact Jasper and Banff represent over a third of the total park visitors in the county (6.5 million visitors vs 15.1 million in all parks natationally).
National Parks Statistics in Canada | Made in CA
So any impact to the tourism dollars is not just an impact to that park but also a potential impact to all other parks in the country as revenue changes.
And hence why it's so...fun?...to go fight fires in the National Parks. Land tenure, national budget implications, high risk areas, and political infighting. One fire I'm glad I didn't go to.