Forester Who Warned of Jasper Wildfires Says More Action Needed to Rehabilitate Affected Areas

A residential block destroyed by wildfires in Jasper, Alta., on July 26, 2024. The Canadian Press/Amber Bracken

A forester who warned of Jasper wildfires back in 2017 says not enough work is being done to rehabilitate the areas hit by last year’s blaze and the lack of action may lead to more fire risks.

Ken Hodges, a retired forester with more than 40 years of experience, says recovery efforts in Jasper following last year’s wildfires have not progressed as quickly as they should. He warns that conditions in some fire-affected areas pose risks to visitor safety, and also notes that delays in recovery are missed opportunities to support ecosystem restoration and to reduce the risk of future wildfires.

“It’s been a while since the fire, and they really haven’t done much in relation to rehabilitation,” he told The Epoch Times, referring to Parks Canada, the federal agency that manages Jasper National Park. Post-wildfire rehabilitation involves repairing or improving burned landscapes that are unlikely to recover without human assistance.

“There’s opportunities for rehabbing the sites—it doesn’t mean you have to clear-cut everything or knock everything down,” he added, noting that a “partial cut” approach to the forest could help reduce fire risks.

He noted that timber is present in large quantities in the park due to fire suppression in Jasper over the last 100 years.

Wildfires have become an increasing concern in Canada, with at least five provinces issuing evacuation orders this year due to active blazes. More than 25,000 residents in the Prairie provinces had to leave their homes by early June, and more than 480 wildfires were burning across Canada as of July 2, including in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Yukon.

But Hodges is raising concerns about how the aftermath of the fire is being managed, arguing that rehabilitation efforts in the Jasper area remain limited a year later. He says such measures are important for breaking up organic debris left behind by the wildfire—which can contribute to future fire risk—as well as for facilitating the ecosystem’s recovery.

Out-of-control wildfires tore through Jasper in July 2024, destroying roughly a third of its structures and forcing about 25,000 residents and visitors to flee. The fire was the second most expensive wildfire event in Canadian history, with insured damage estimated to be $1.23 billion, according to federal government data.

Parks Canada Measures

Parks Canada says it has been updating its long-term wildfire risk reduction strategy after the 2024 Jasper wildfire. Its current approach includes measures such as reducing fuels, creating fire control lines, following FireSmart practices, and supporting wildfire suppression, the agency says. FireSmart practices are guidelines for communities to reduce their vulnerability to wildfires.

During the 2024–25 winter season, the agency focused its Jasper wildfire risk reduction work on vegetation management and fireguard enhancements, Parks Canada spokesperson Megan Hope told The Epoch Times.

That included tree felling, limbing, and removal and on-site burning of debris around outlying commercial areas, as well as the clearing of an additional 99 hectares of vegetation west of town. Work also included maintaining narrow roads for emergency access and exit routes for residents, visitors, and first responders.

When it comes to reducing fuel loads, Parks Canada says it uses both mechanical removal and prescribed burning, but notes that mechanical methods offer greater flexibility.

“While prescribed fire is a valuable tool, it requires specific weather and site conditions to be safely conducted,” says a Parks Canada statement. “Mechanical removal allows crews to maintain flexibility in treatment schedules and ensures progress in meeting [wildfire risk reduction] targets, even when conditions for prescribed fire are not ideal.”

Hodges cautioned that the rehabilitation of the park, which often involves stabilizing soil and supporting the recovery of natural hydrologic and biological processes, requires active intervention rather than leaving the area to recover on its own.

Parks Canada’s statement did not mention particular measures taken for ecosystem recovery, but it said the agency’s fire management program also works to “create healthier landscapes that are more resilient to climate change.”

Jasper Wildfire

Hodges said he wrote multiple letters to Parks Canada and then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna between 2017 and 2018, warning that a wildfire in Jasper National Park was not a matter of “if” but “when.”

He warned that years of fire suppression in the area, combined with a buildup of pine beetle-killed trees in the national park, created ideal conditions for a wildfire, and that the town was unprepared to prevent it.

Hodges and another forester, Emile Begin, had suggested widespread controlled burning and logging to clear out the dead wood, they previously told The Epoch Times.

Hodges said in testimony before a House of Commons committee in October last year that if Parks Canada and the federal government had taken measures to address his early warnings, the town of Jasper could have been saved from the 2024 blaze.

“If they had completed some strategies around that—and they had seven years in which to do something and come up with a plan of some sort—I think they could have prevented the loss of Jasper town itself,” he said.

The federal government, for its part, has said it took all possible measures to prevent and fight the wildfires in Jasper.

“To think that over all those decades, we would not have deployed all of the resources necessary to try and do everything that is humanly possible to protect a town from a forest fire, is simply not true,” former Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in July 2024.

“The fact that we were able to protect 70 percent of the town speaks to all of those measures we have put in place over the years and frankly, decades.”

Guilbeault also said at a committee meeting on Sept. 25, 2024, that Parks Canada has used prescribed fires for four decades, including 15 controlled burns in Jasper National Park in the last 10 years. He added that the government has invested “millions of dollars” in the battle against pine beetles.

Meanwhile, Alberta Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen raised concerns during an Oct. 7, 2024, House committee meeting about what he described as inadequate federal wildfire prevention efforts, such as prescribed fires, to remove beetle-killed trees from national parks.

“The tragic events in Jasper highlight the importance of proactive measures in forest conservation and fire prevention,” Loewen said.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.