Thousands of people forced from their homes in the heart of Jasper National Park are preparing for a homecoming that will signal the beginning of a daunting effort to rebuild what was lost to the flames.
More than 5,000 residents forced to evacuate the community of Jasper last month have been invited to return for the first time on Friday. It’s unclear how many will be coming back to stay.
Monday’s announcement of a re-entry plan came with a warning that a return to Jasper may not be possible or prudent for everyone.
Officials have cautioned that while the community is considered safe, many Jasperites will be coming home to inhospitable conditions due to the extent of the damage.
One-third of all the buildings in the townsite were destroyed and early estimates by the municipality suggest homes and businesses valued at a total of $283 million were destroyed.
‘So many uncertainties’
Clara Adriano, who has operated a commercial laundry in the community since 2017, is apprehensive about leaving her Calgary hotel room and returning to Jasper.
Her business, Adriano Laundry Service, which she managed with her husband Tony, is among 358 buildings lost to the flames.
“I’m going to see our business gone. But I’m grateful our house is still intact,” Adriano said in an interview Monday from her hotel room.
Adriano said it’s going to be difficult to see her neighbours’ homes and businesses reduced to rubble.
She isn’t sure when she will return home. She’s not sure she’s ready to see the damage done and said the timeline for recovery feels daunting.
“I don’t know what to expect,” she said. “I have some mixed emotions.
“There’s so many uncertainties right now, for all of us.”
A state of emergency remains in place within the municipality and residents must be prepared to leave again at a moment’s notice as a wildfire evacuation alert remains in effect.
Some residents will be travelling to Jasper simply to survey the wreckage of their gutted homes or businesses.
Residents with homes still standing have been warned that their properties may not be habitable due to internal damage and that basic services remain extremely limited.
In the hardest hit neighbourhoods on the western side of the townsite, homeowners may not have access to natural gas service or running water.
Some homes were polluted with smoke. Others were flooded by fire hoses or pipes that burst when underground infrastructure, including water meters, melted in the heat of the flames.
Residents have been advised to survey their properties for unstable structures, still-smouldering ash pits, toxic soot, demolition dust and poorly ventilated spaces that may contain carbon monoxide.
There are no resources or accommodations in place for evacuees who lost their homes and returning residents need to be prepared to be as self-sufficient as possible.
Trails and campgrounds remain closed. The re-entry plan, however, does not exclude non-residents from entering Jasper or the national park.
After residents voiced safety and security concerns about a possible influx of visitors, municipal officials said late Monday they’re working to prioritize residents during re-entry.
In a statement, the Municipality of Jasper said more details on priority access will be shared with evacuees before Friday.
WATCH | Jasper residents can return home Friday after devastating wildfire:
Three weeks after a wildfire forced a mass evacuation of Jasper National Park, thousands of people forced from their homes will be allowed to return to the town on Friday. Also, the co-author of a new study about the lingering effects of PTSD in wildfire evacuees gives some perspective on what Jasper residents might experience in weeks or months to come.
About 25,000 people fled Jasper National Park on July 22 as a pair of wildfires drew dangerously close. Two days later, wind-whipped flames hundreds of feet high overwhelmed firefighters and entered the community.
In Edmonton, Jasper resident Victoria Wilson said she was “itching to get back” home, but now feels a sense of trepidation.
“It’s very real now,” Wilson said in an interview. “I’m not sure what to expect.
“It’s going to be kind of weird to go back home and … try and have the community feel like home again.”
Wilson, who has lived in Jasper for three years, works as an employment coach with the Jasper Employment and Education Centre.
Heidi Veluw, executive director of the centre, said her team plans to return to Jasper and will make do with whatever they find.
“We’re pretty pliable,” Veluw said. “If you have to air out my office and we have to sit in the front and pull out a table, that’s what we’ll do.”
Since the evacuation, the centre has operated out of temporary offices in Edmonton and Calgary, helping evacuees and temporary foreign workers replace documents and apply for new work permits.
Veluw also employs temporary foreign workers. Some staff who lost homes may stay with her once they return to Jasper.
“They’ve lost everything, so we will work it out,” she said.
During a special meeting Tuesday, Jasper council approved a series of measures to ease the burden on homeowners, including suspending the collection of municipal tax payments on damaged and destroyed properties.
Council also asked administration to explore how the municipality might mitigate its losses in the long term.
Bill Given, Jasper’s chief administrative officer, said preliminary evaluation has found that Jasper lost properties assessed at a total of roughly $283 million. He said those properties would normally pay just over $2.2 million in municipal property taxes and other levies.
The municipality will need to work with other levels of government to help manage losses and escalating expenses during the years-long recovery, Given said.
“That will be a reduction in our capacity just when we need it the most,” he said.
‘A new normal’
The wildfire that devastated Jasper now spans an estimated at approximately 33,000 hectares and continues to burn out of control. However, the northwest end of the fire that presents a risk to the townsite is now 99 per cent contained.
As of Monday afternoon, plumes of smoke billowed over the wreckage of burned neighbourhoods. It’s expected to remain a common sight within the community. The wildfire is expected to burn for months.
Jonathan Large, incident commander for Parks Canada, said fire on the landscape is part of the new reality for Jasper.
He said that despite the smoke, favourable weather has helped ground crews make critical progress on the fire perimeter.
“We’re aiming for 100 per cent containment status by Wednesday,” Large told council on Tuesday. “We are confident that we’ll meet that objective.”
Large said many dangers remain and it will take time before the park can fully re-opened.
He said some residents have expressed concern about the risk of a second evacuation but officials are working hard to ensure the community is not hit by the flames twice.
Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said he’s relieved re-entry is possible but said his community must be prepared to face “a new normal,” including the persistent presence of fire in the park.
He said residents need time to recover before visitors return. They may need to live outside the national park while they clean and repair.
“This re-entry is not to be confused with rehabilitation,” Ireland said Monday.
Ireland said the losses that residents will be returning to did not fall equally. The flames moved sporadically, leaving an unpredictable path of destruction through the community.
It’s something Wyatt Bell, 18 has felt acutely these past few weeks. His family home in the south end survived but is surrounded by gutted properties.
Bell, a lifelong Jasper resident, said he feels compelled to return to see the damage but has mixed feelings about what comes next for his hometown.
“You feel grateful that your house is up but you feel bad for people’s houses that burned to the ground,” he said.
“It’s sad. That was the town that I grew up in and it’s going to take a lot. It’s going to take years to get it back to where it was.”