When wildfires ravaged the town of Jasper in July, it wasn’t hard for Banff residents to imagine it happening in their own mountain community.
“This could happen here. We live in a national park, and anything could happen here,” said resident Jesse Adams.
“A lot of people live here and when hotels are full, it would be a disaster.”
The thought also went through the mind of resident Donna Pachaco.
“Just because it’s our neighbours and a beautiful tourist town like we have here, it could happen anywhere.”
Parks Canada says there is a combination of factors that are increasing the chance and severity of intense, faster-moving and longer-lasting wildfires that pose a risk to communities in mountain parks.
“We really held on to suppression as a forest management strategy for the last 100 years which have allowed the forests to become really old, to become more susceptible to things …