Multiple wildfires in the Canadian Rockies’ largest national park have sent up to 25,000 visitors and residents fleeing west over the last open mountain road.
EDMONTON, AB — Multiple wildfires in the Canadian Rockies’ largest national park sent up to 25,000 visitors and residents fleeing west over the last open mountain road Tuesday, navigating through darkness and soot following a government alert during the area’s busiest tourist time of the year.
“It’s wall-to-wall traffic,” Carolyn Campbell, an Edmonton resident, said by phone from her vehicle. “(The smoke) is pretty thick. We’ve got masks in the car.” She said it took hours to move just seven kilometers (about four miles), and worried about others who fled with little gas in their tanks.
Hundreds of wildfires are burning in western Canada, and those fleeing Jasper National Park and Jasper town — home to 4,700 full-time residents — in Alberta province were given …