Alberta wants joint wildfire command with feds amid devastating Jasper wildfire

The Alberta Government is proposing a unified wildfire command with the federal government in the wake of an ongoing blaze in Jasper that is estimated to have destroyed up to half of the townsite’s infrastructure.

Parks Canada, a federal agency, is in unified command of the firefight with the Municipality of Jasper, premier Danielle Smith said Thursday.

Alberta is hoping to be added to that unified command, with Smith explaining a consistent joint effort among all levels of government is needed to battle the province’s increasing wildfire danger.

“We are providing whatever assistance they ask for. We’ve positioned our equipment and we remain on standby to do whatever it is they request.”

Ahead of her meeting planned in Edmonton Thursday with Minister of Emergency Preparedness, Harjit Sajjan, Smith says she will ask the province be added to the unified command.

“We’ll see if we can move towards that,” she said. “It will allow us to be more integrated in the decision-making on that.”

The federal government has convened an incident response group to coordinate all federal agencies to send resources and reinforce firefighting efforts. Sajjan was asked Thursday whether this makes a case for a national centralized fire agency.

“Parks Canada do have a wildfire response force,” he says. “Even when they are not being utilized in national parks, they actually offer their support to other provinces, just like they are doing in Alberta at this time.”

Sajjan says all the resources that were requested were authorized, and all that could have been done to fight these fires was done.

When it came to calling for help from Canada’s military, Smith says Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, Mike Ellis, Stephen Lacroix with the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, and herself were all in touch with their federal counterparts as early as July 18 to warn there was a possibility of needing federal intervention.

The desire to join in on unified command is based on a few factors, the premier explains.

“We can’t just send equipment into federal airspace without co-ordination, you can’t send unmanned aerial vehicles which we use with infared, we can’t send in helicopters with night vision, we can’t send in water bombers, without being integrated with them,” she said. “We are also very quick to respond with dozers to be able to create fireguards and we can’t do that without them giving the order to assist in bringing in those dozers and building fire guards around.”

Smith also says Alberta has new equipment such as night vision helicopters and night firefighting it can bring to the table.

“We also have a lot of resources with the Urban Wildfire Interface, we put in an RFP [request for procurement] out to four different companies that are able to put, essentially, a wall of water up to match the wall of fire and so, these are the kind of resources we would bring to bare as part of unified command,” the premier said.

During Thursday’s update, an emotional Premier Danielle Smith said she is waiting for more information from Parks Canada on exactly how much destruction has been caused by the fire.

“If you’ve seen the images as I have, we don’t know particularly which structures have been damaged and which ones have been destroyed,” she said. “But that’s going to be a significant rebuild.”

The wildfire that started south of the townsite is now estimate to be at least 10,800 hectares in size, while the fire northeast of the town is estimated at 270 hectares.

Minister Sajjan is expected to speak to the public Friday morning from Edmonton.