Scott Hayes | [email protected]
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The public can expect prescribed fires on the landscape once again.
Parks Canada issued the notice last week, as March to June and mid-August to November are normally the ideal periods for these wildfire risk reduction efforts.
鈥淩ight now, we're just waiting for the conditions to be correct,鈥� said Katie Ellsworth, fire management officer in Jasper National Park.
鈥淲e have a very tight set of parameters when the temperature and the wind and the soil moisture conditions are going to be appropriate for us to be able to execute this prescribed fire in a way that will maintain our ability to control it and execute it safely but also reach our ecological goals.鈥�
It鈥檚 a very fine line between the three states of snow-free, too dry and green-up, which refers to the beginning of a new cycle of plant growth.
Last week, the fire management team was starting to receive data from weather stations as they became free of snow. The first prescribed fire could take place any day within the next few weeks, all depending on conditions.
Parks Canada undertakes prescribed fires for a variety of reasons: to reduce the wildfire risk to communities; to help restore forest and grassland ecosystems; and to enhance wildlife habitat.
It has plans for two prescribed fires in Jasper National Park this year, the first of which is in the Douglas fir Hillsides area (a.k.a. the Pyramid Bench). The closest that it will get to town is on the border of the northwest edge of the townsite.
The fire will burn one of seven subunits in the area located approximately one kilometre northwest of town, along Mina Lake. This burn will help to restore the Douglas fir forest. It will also build off of the success of past mechanical thinning efforts to enhance the landscape-level fireguard around town.聽
The second location is in Southesk, an area that contains approximately 925 hectares in the southeast corner of Jasper National Park. This will be upstream of the wildfire that occurred in the valley in 2006.
This effort will promote the natural regeneration of the lodgepole pine forest, which requires periodic fire to remain healthy and become resilient to future pine beetle infestation.
These prescribed fires will only be conducted if weather, wind, and venting conditions allow smoke to disperse into the atmosphere.
鈥淚t's really driven by weather,鈥� Ellsworth said.聽
Parks Canada will issue public notices before it moves ahead with any of these plans.
