The Jasper City Council says about 32 percent of the city’s structures were destroyed in the fire.
A wildfire that destroyed about a third of the western Canadian city of Jasper is still out of control, but rain and cooler conditions are helping firefighters, authorities said.
The town of Jasper is in Alberta’s mountainous Jasper National Park, a major tourist attraction. The city and park, which attract more than two million tourists a year, were evacuated on Monday.
“The rain, cooler temperatures and incredibly hard work by firefighters have resulted in significantly subdued fire activity,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Friday.
Smith told reporters it is “important to note that the fire is still out of control.”
“It remains unsafe for people to return,” she said.
As of Thursday, the Jasper “wildfire complex,” which encompasses three separate fires, was estimated at 36,000 hectares (about 89,000 acres), according to park officials. However, they warned that mapping the complex was difficult due to strong winds and “extreme fire behavior.”
Meanwhile, the Jasper City Council said at least 358 of the city’s 1,113 structures — about 32 percent — were destroyed.
Jasper Wildfire Complex Update: Current as of July 26th at 12:40 pm pic.twitter.com/LSIJrH8oE7
— Jasper National Park, Parks Canada (@JasperNP) July 26, 2024
Authorities estimated that about 10,000 people were in the town of Jasper and 15,000 visitors were inside the national park when the evacuation was ordered on Monday.
David Leoni, one of the thousands of people evacuated, said his family lost the house they had lived in for 10 years.
“Even a day and a half after this, I still feel very shocked,” he told Canadian television CTV.
“I’ll gladly go back and see what’s left… for me, psychologically, it’s – I think it’s good to have closure and see for myself what it’s like.”
Devastations of the climate crisis
The fire in the iconic national park, located about 370 kilometers (230 miles) west of the provincial capital, Edmonton, has drawn attention to the devastating wildfire season that has defined the summer months in North America.
The blaze was one of hundreds of fires across western Canada, driven by a heat wave and an increase in lightning strikes. At least 166 fires were active in Alberta as of Friday, according to a government tracker.
Scientists say the global climate crisis has lengthened the wildfire season in North America, with higher temperatures creating drier conditions that allow fires to spread quickly. Climate change has also been blamed for the increase in lightning frequency.
Canada had its most intense fire season on record in 2023, with more than 6,600 wildfires burning 15 million hectares (about 37 million acres) across the country, an area about seven times the annual average.
South of the Canadian border, firefighters were also battling a series of fires in the western United States, with more than 110 active fires covering 7,250 square kilometers (2,800 square miles) in flames as of Friday.
This included the Park Fire in California, which destroyed more than 130 structures after breaking out on Wednesday. The fire, currently the largest in the state, started after a man pushed a burning car down an embankment in the northern city of Chico, authorities said.
In Oregon, a search and rescue team confirmed that a tanker plane crash killed an Oregon firefighting pilot. The plane disappeared Thursday while battling the Falls Fire on the state’s eastern flank.
The largest active fire in the U.S. was also in the state, with the Durkee Fire burning nearly 1,630 square kilometers (630 square miles) as of Friday.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
