Parks Canada more than halfway through creating wildfire safety barrier

There's a big logging operation underway just west of Lake Louise.

Parks Canada is a little past halfway through creating a safety barrier meant to stop wildfires from going too far and to give fire crews a place to stand and fight.

It's not a sight you'd expect to see in a national park, but a large strip of trees is being removed from the boundary of Banff and Yoho to give firefighters a chance.

"This area is prone to lightning strikes, so we're looking at creating a break in the fuels on the landscape to protect the communities of Field and Lake Louise in the event of a wildfire," said Shelley Tamelin, Parks Canada wildfire risk reduction manager.

The problem is a forest of tightly packed lodgepole pine that hasn't burned in nearly a century.

"There's just not a lot of natural openings left. That gives us a problem from a fire management perspective," said John Large, Parks Canada fire vegetation specialist.

"If we're coming into a fire and looking at areas where we can stop it or hold it for some suppression, we just don't have many options right now."

The cut block is just over a kilometre long and about 500 metres across, stretching from Ross Lake to the Trans-Canada Highway.

Fire crews also worry about their ability to stop the flames, as some of the tools of the past have literally dried up.

"The water tables are lower. The streams are lower. It really affects our suppression abilities. A lot of the streams that we maybe used to be able to put a pump in or pull helicopter buckets from, those water sources aren't there,” Large said.

Clearing out the dense forest also has a benefit for wildlife.

"Create these large openings that will improve foraging habitat for wildlife and draw wildlife away from busy highway corridors and the rail line, and to where it's safer for them to forage," Tamelin said.

Some of the scrap is being burned at the site but marketable timber is being sent to lumber and pulp mills – standing dead wood will be sold for campfires.

"The sale of the logs does fully offset the cost of the project, so the project does not cost the taxpayer any money," Tamelin said.

Work on the firebreak started in November and is expected to be complete by the end of March, before the spring thaw.

Parks Canada has also planted dozens of endangered whitebark pine in the newly cleared area, marked by clusters of tall stumps.