Massive fires burn parts of the West
Parts of a popular tourist destination in the Canadian Rockies have been “burned to the ground” after a wildfire with tropical storm force winds merged with another fire to burn 89,000 acres, officials said, adding that as much as half of the town may have been severely damaged.
The fires broke out in Alberta, Canada, where they overtook the municipality of Jasper, home to Jasper National Park, the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies and the second-largest dark sky preserve in the world. It started on Monday, when Parks Canada said it was responding to multiple fires. By the next day, Jasper and Jasper National Park had been evacuated, with officials focusing on two blazes – the North Wildfire and the South Wildfire.
“The storm was ferocious– the skies went dark and there were whipping winds, fierce rain and lightning,” BBC journalist Wendy Hurrell, who had been in …