Work begins to protect Banff and Lake Louise from 'perfect storm' of wildfire conditions

A collapsed tree is seen on Tunnel Mountain in Banff National Park. (CTV News)

When wildfires ravaged the town of Jasper in July, it wasn’t hard for Banff residents to imagine it happening in their own mountain community.

“This could happen here. We live in a national park, and anything could happen here,” said resident Jesse Adams.

“A lot of people live here and when hotels are full, it would be a disaster.”

The thought also went through the mind of resident Donna Pachaco.

“Just because it’s our neighbours and a beautiful tourist town like we have here, it could happen anywhere.”

Parks Canada says there is a combination of factors that are increasing the chance and severity of intense, faster-moving and longer-lasting wildfires that pose a risk to communities in mountain parks.

“We really held on to suppression as a forest management strategy for the last 100 years which have allowed the forests to become really old, to become more susceptible to things like mountain pine beetle and other forest diseases, and we also have this accumulation of fuel," said Jane Perk, the fire and vegetation specialist for Parks Canada’s Banff field unit.

"You combine that with climate change and increased periods of drought and severe weather and it’s kind of this perfect storm of landscape that is susceptible to wildfire."

Parks Canada is taking steps to reduce the risk of wildfires in Banff National Park through several fire management projects in the fall and through the winter.

In November, crews will begin thinning a 200-hectare area on Tunnel Mountain, using machines to clear mature pine and spruce trees.

The goal is to reduce fuel for fires that could pose a risk to Banff, Harvie Heights and Canmore.

In a few years, there will be a prescribed burn of the area, or what’s sometimes described as a controlled burn.

“The project aims are kind of twofold. One we’re aiming to reduce the amount of fuel so it provides less of a risk to visitors in the park and neighbouring communities, but also long term we aim to improve the ecological integrity of the region by restoring this to an open forest habitat, removing the dead pine beetle infected trees and having a more douglas fir open meadow kind of forest habitat that will provide good opportunities for native plants to develop,” said Lewis Prentic, the wildfire risk reduction project coordinator in Banff.

In the Lake Louise area, work continues on a fire guard, starting with the mechanical clearing of trees and debris starting in November.

The project will cover 165.5 hectares or roughly the same size as 300 US football fields.

A map shows the Lake Louise Community Fire Guard area. (CTV News)

It will span from the south slope of Mount St. Piran, which is just behind the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, to the parking lot and ski runs of Lake Louise Ski Hill on Whitehorn Mountain.

Visitors to both attractions will notice and hear work over the next two to three winters.

Parks Canada said this project is a continuation of over a decade of wildfire mitigation work around the community and is a proactive measure to reduce the risk of future wildfires in the area, including a fire guard north of Ross Lake.

“A lot of communities within Canada that are within a forested landscape have wildfire risk so that’s not something we can completely remove but what we do with our program with prescribed fire and fuel mitigation is try to reduce that risk as much as possible,” said Perk.

“We’re doing as much as we can with the resources that we’re given. We have been working with local industry and residents to be as prepared as we can.”