Editor:
Let’s see – it took four relatively cool and calm days for Parks Canada to control a small and accessible blaze near the Banff townsite, according to the May 7 article in the Outlook. And, if I recall correctly, it took the province a few additional days to extinguish another fairly small burn along the Trans-Canada Highway at Dead Man’s Flats in 2021.
So, I wonder what we might expect on a very windy afternoon at the end of a hot and dry August after a lightning strikes far from a road or if some clown flips a lit cigarette or leaves an untended campfire somewhere in the Bow Valley bush?
No doubt the extensive FireSmart work around Banff and Canmore makes us all much safer – thank you. And this is not to criticize the exemplary prescribed fire program in Banff National Park – yes, accidents happen.
But if minor blazes in convenient locations during relatively advantageous weather present the challenges we have witnessed recently, we now have sobering warnings about what might happen to Banff and Canmore when conditions favour wildfire, not firefighters.
This week’s reports from Edson, East Prairie, Evansburg, Drayton Valley, O’Chiese First Nation, Entwistle, Wildwood, Fox Lake, and Hansonville may offer a frightening forecast. What more might governments, businesses and homeowners do to minimize damage and increase our survival odds when the next inevitable wildfire flares?
Jim Pissot,
Canmore
