Parks Canada protecting Banff and Lake Louise with fire break
Parks Canada is creating a 32.8-hectare fire guard at Protection Mountain on Highway 1A in Banff National Park to reduce the risk of wildfire to the community of Lake Louise and the surrounding area.
The south side of Protection Mountain is a strategic area for Parks Canada, because it's able to make a fire break by mechanically cutting trees.
The swath is 400 metres wide and 1.5 kilometres long and work on it started in December 2022.
Charlie McLellan is the fire and vegetation specialist with Parks Canada and says a lot of work has already gone on around the mountain communities of Banff and Lake Louise, but this project is on a larger scale.
"As a result of over a century of fire suppression, we've got an even age forest going from valley bottom to basically the rock and ice above in this location," said McLellan. "Which created areas without many natural features to manage fires."
McLellan says the effects of climate change have increased the length of the fire season in the park as well as increased the potential for large fires, so projects like this are needed to give park's staff a way to manage the large fires.
"If we get a fire and, in this location of the Bow Valley, we have something we can easily tie it into to reduce the size and spread of it," he said. "At least on one on one side and gain containment, which reduces a lot of impacts to communities or infrastructure or tourists visitation here, but also at a broader scale it will reduce the amount of smoke that we've been seeing in our summer months."
Shelley Tamelin is the wildfire risk reduction manager in the park and says the idea is to do a project like this ahead of the fire season so her department has a lot of time to plan and prepare.
"The location was chosen because we're tying into a natural feature," she said. "There is a rocky scree slope on the hillside that they're tying into, that meant that they didn't have to make the fire guard as big or as wide as you would normally require."
Tamelin says in exchange for doing the work, the lumber that comes off of the mountain side becomes the property of the contractor.
"So we don't pay to have the work done," she said. "He takes the wood as his profit on the project and we also do receive some funds from the logging contractor in exchange for the wood, and we're going to funnel those funds back into a restoration work."
Many saplings of endangered five needle pine trees have been found in the area and are being saved. By comparison a typical lodge pole pine has two needles.
"Every one of these little clusters has five needles," said Tamelin. "We don't know if that's a limber pine or a white bark pine, because it's too young to tell so we call it a fine needle pine."
McLellan says when the fire break is finished in mid-March that it will likely become a popular spot for wildlife.
"For example, grizzly bears in the valley here are often found in open habitats where they can find important food resources," he said. "Unfortunately, many of those areas often occur in areas with increased mortality along the highway or along the railway so this area provides a safe area for grizzly bears to forage."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Maple Leafs fall to Bruins in Game 3, trail series 2-1
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
New Indigenous loan guarantee program a 'really big deal,' Freeland says at Toronto conference
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
'Life was not fair to him': Daughter of N.B. man exonerated of murder remembers him as a kind soul
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.