Wildfires send about 25,000 fleeing from Canadian Rockies largest national park and nearby town WPXI [Video]

EDMONTON, Alberta — (AP) — 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 residents — in Alberta province were given the unusual order later Tuesday to make a vast U-turn east if they needed a place to stay. To the west, British Columbia province …