Sometimes the worst happens. These days it has the desolate outlines of the town of Jasper, covered in ash. The town that presents itself as “the small town in the big park” is nevertheless renowned for the quality of its preparation for natural disasters. Living in the heart of a national park necessarily makes one more attentive to the sudden bursts of Mother Nature, to the point of having made it one of the most alert cities in this area in Canada.
Federal Civil Protection Minister Harjit Sajjan used the phrase “ fire smart ” to talk about this small town in the Rockies of 5,000 inhabitants. The fact remains that, faced with the ferocity of a wall of flames up to 100 meters high that powerful gusts moved over five kilometers in less than 30 minutes, the battle was impossible.
It is understandable why Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was overcome with emotion when she announced that 30% of the municipality’s buildings had been damaged by the flames. Jasper National Park, with its 11,000 km2 wilderness, is not only a tourist hotspot, it is also a spectacular symbol of the best Canadian beauty has to offer.
A few years ago, the park experienced a major outbreak of mountain pine beetle, which has since been brought under control. This destructive insect colonizes mature pine trees, drying them out to matchsticks, weakening the forest’s resilience. This spring, experts expressed concern about the overall health of this park under the authority of Parks Canada.
Could the Crown corporation have been more proactive, or even more energetic in its interventions? It’s hard to say, because it has been very quiet so far, devoting its energy to putting to sleep a monster that is said to have engulfed up to 32,000 hectares of territory, making it the largest forest fire in over 100 years. Once the dust has settled, its leaders must not be allowed to shirk their responsibilities.
The same goes for the government of Mme Smith, whose decision to end the Firefighter Recall Program in 2019 has come back to haunt him. Under his leadership — and that of his NDP predecessor, Rachel Notley — wildfire programs were cut back substantially. So much so that the United Conservative Party was accused by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees of knowingly fueling “a recruitment and retention crisis.” The province’s fire chiefs have called for more resources and equipment, as well as a fire anticipation and management strategy.
All these red flags add up to a year 2023 that is a tipping point for Canadian forests due to a record number of active and especially greedy fires. There comes a time when fires can become so numerous, so intense, that our forests then end up emitting more CO2 than they absorb, a vicious cycle to which boreal forests are especially vulnerable.
We will also have to address head-on the issue of the resilience of our communities and their ability to rebuild on more sustainable foundations. If we don’t do it, the insurance companies will do it for us. In our southern neighbors, the showdown is taking place with increasingly heavy surcharges, but especially with insurers – and not just small ones – who are leaving certain markets that are more at risk of suffering the wrath of the climate, such as Louisiana, Florida, Texas and California.
Last month, the Washington Post looked at those left behind by insurance. Citing the Insurance Information Institute, it noted that the ranks of the uninsured had swelled from 5% in 2019 to 12% by 2022. It quoted an expert who put her finger on a central element in the way society views the effects of climate change. If some still doubt that the climate crisis is coming to them, not being able to get insurance is often their first harsh reality check.
We are not there yet in Canada. The fact remains that some insurers are already applying temporary restrictions in areas located up to 50 kilometres from a forest fire. It is then impossible to take out home insurance, and it is also impossible to update your insurance policy. Until the danger has passed.
The federal government can no longer simply sprinkle prevention and response aid. It must structure itself and assess the relevance of establishing a federal emergency response organization, modeled on the American FEMA. The ashes of Jasper must not be in vain. Our governments can use it as a textbook case in the necessary adaptation and transformation of our living environments and our tourist hotspots. To do this, we will have to considerably refine our climate knowledge in order to take not of better decisions, but well THE better decisions when the worst happens again. Because it will.