I owe a friend of mine from Canada a thank-you for giving me a gentle kick a couple of days reminding me about a bad wildfire in Jasper in Alberta. My friends were traveling in Alberta in late July, spending one night in Jasper around the time evacuation orders were issued. Thankfully, my friends got out of Jasper safely and without too much difficulty.
The wildfire in and around Jasper started on or about July 22nd. I believe that my friends were there 2 to 4 days later. Many houses in Jasper were lost to the wildfire and residents are only recently being allowed to return. Roads in the area of the wildfire were just reopened on or about August 9th and 10th.Jasper National Park is still closed as I write this. The fire was at 80 percent containment on August 10th. There are many photos of the fire along with information on emotional and mental health, rapid damage assessment and more at website from Parks Canada that I linked to earlier in this paragraph. The video that I have embedded below is from Sky News in late July.
Direct link to video from Sky News on YouTube
While some progress has been made on the Jasper Fire, wildfire danger remains in western Canada. An example is a warning off extreme wildfire danger in British Columbia for the weekend just past. Revised at 3:25 pm on August 12th with some information on wildfire starts over the weekend.
Direct link to video from CTV News on YouTube
British Columbia's Wildfire Service webpage may be found here and it looks like this page (with a map) is updated at least daily. According to their dashboard (dated August 12th, probably updated daily) there are 414 active wildfires of which 34 were started in the last 24 hours and 328 were started by lightning. Of the 414, five are consider a wildfire of note. A wildfire of note "are wildfires that are highly visible or post a potential threat to public safety." At least four of these were started since July 19th.
The Kamloops Fire Center in British Columbia reported 30 new wildfire starts from August 9 to 11th, most if not all of these wildfire starts can be attributed to lightning.
As for specific wildfires that were started over the weekend, CBC Canada reported on one, a wildfire that was first reported on Saturday, August 10 burning close to the village of Valemount in British Columbia, known as the Canoe Road Wildfire. An evacuation order was issued Saturday morning and later lowered to an evacuation alert.
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