By the way we also need more money.
Blacklocks- Jasper Fire Was ‘Big Concern’
Parks Canada managers four years ago said fire risks at Jasper National Park were a “big concern.” The agency yesterday would not explain why it failed to take all measures needed to save the Town of Jasper from a July 24 wildfire that destroyed 358 buildings.
Parliament in 2021 budgeted $100.6 million in five-year funding for fire preparedness in national parks including $2.2 million a year to combat beetle infestations blamed for killing pine trees. Parks Canada boasted at 2020 environment committee hearings that Jasper National Park was “one of the very few places” where the agency cut trees to reduce fire risk.
As with all things Liberal: “We want full authority and take no responsibility.”
From the official comments of various ‘officials’, ‘experts’ and assorted paper pushers, one is told, they are proud that they prevented the whole town burning down by their prior actions. All in all it was a great success.
Yee all are so negative, never looking at the bright sides of thing.
How can anybody, anywhere claim success when a town burns.
Only those working for government can say, obviously stupid, things like that and be supported by the mass media cartel.
The plebeians are good with that, so everything is cool, more or less.
For $2.2 million … I doubt you could rent a storefront in Jasper and staff it with a “director”, and assistant director, and secretary for 1 year, never mind actually going out the forest to see what’s up, and then actually doing something about it, or hiring someone to do something about it.
#Libranos don’t work for free. Though I guess they have space now to plant those 2 billion trees they’d promised to plant.
Just when I thought I couldn’t hate the feds any more than I already did…
Probably seen before, but link to the damage map of Jasper:
https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/calgaryherald/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/0730-jasper-damage-map2.png
Hahaha ha ha … that’s nothing more than “lunch money” for such a fine government bureaucracy.
I wonder (not really) if all the “experts have a clue about the role of fire in forests.
It is not al Sylvan Glades, rainbows and unicorns out there
Fires in forests are a reality and have been since before humans ever set foot in them.
REGULAR low-intensity fires usually burn “low and slow”; clearing the weeds and rubbish from the forest floor. They lack enough fuel to “cook” the soil to the extent that all of the organics and supporting creepy-crawlies are also cooked.
Prevent “modest” fires for long enough and the ground litter builds up to the point that, WHEN it goes up, the fuel load is quite impressive. The heat from such fires not only “cooks” the soil and kills the little critters, but it is usually sufficient to kill pretty much any tree in its way. The “cooked soil thus becomes “dust. This dust is often washed away by the rain that often falls after such blazes. The topsoil (now just plain dust) ends up choking waterways and the wildlife therein. BIG fires also generate their own “weather”, causing high speed winds to form and thus blow fires and airborne cinders all over the place. The radiant heat from a fully-blown “crown fire” is sufficient to kill wildlife and humans, well before actually coming in contact. It also flash-ignites buildings and vehicles, out to 25 metres or so.
There is power and glory for the uninvolved bureaucrats in fire season. But, brave REAL men and women VOLUNTEER to fight these fires every year. Time for a “reality check”?
Face it. They want fires …. lots of them … and big ones! They eed them to prove that there is a climate crisis.
So, they’ve ceased the funding of activities that would mitigate the likelihood of forest fires. And their “climate crisis” rhetoric encourages loser arsonists to go out and start the majority of fires. And maybe, months and months later, if ever, there might me a little column on page 11 about the losers being charged with setting the fires.
Well said.
The only way to “mitigate” beetle attack is to log the f’ing trees.
There is no other way. But that would mean loggers and machines in our sacred Parks!
And the sight of BIG logging trucks hauling hundreds of loads to the nearest mills would probably cause heart failure in our green zealots we call government.
Almost every fire I’ve seen that endangered towns in the last 30 years was due to governments not listening to the foresters who told them how to prevent the big fires by early Spring controlled burns. Each time the foresters were ignored,and within five years the Big One hit.
I’ve lived in two communities where this occurred,and it was all due to environmental zealots and the shitheads in the tourist industry who don’t want visitors to see smoke in the sir.
Next year, Banff?
Wasn’t Banff where the Lady Firefighters actually had a practice training session get away from them not too long ago?
And the eco-zealots would hate to have those dead trees actually turned into useable lumber at a reasonable cost because that might mean building homes became a tad more affordable.
But, but, but … the logging roads cause erosion and permanent damage to the forest duff!!
100.6 million over five years. Compare that with the tens of billions invested in the coming EV collapse in Ontario and Quebec.