WATERTON FIRE ALERT
Park threatened by U.S. blaze
Residents and tourists in Waterton Lakes National Park are under an evacuation alert as raging wildfires threaten the popular destination for the second time in less than a year.
Parks Canada issued the warning just after 10:45 p.m. Thursday as a 700-hectare wildfire burns out of control just south of the park in the Boundary Creek Valley.
Some of the flames were reported to be as high as a 20-storey building.
The alert was issued to prepare people to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice in the event of an evacuation order.
Parks Canada said visitors and residents in the park will be given as much notice as possible before an order is given, but warned there may be “limited notice due to changing conditions.”
People living in or near the park should work with family and friends to designate an emergency reception centre or safe location outside the evacuation area as a meeting place if an evacuation is ordered.
Access to the park has been closed, but the townsite, Chief Mountain Highway and highways 5 and 6 are still open.
When first spotted by air patrols around 6 p.m. on Thursday, the fire was roughly 20 hectares in size and grew to more than 700 hectares in four hours. The fire is currently south of the border in Glacier National Park, Montana. Parks Canada and the U.S. National Park Service are co-ordinating efforts to fight the blaze.
“Air resources will be used today (Friday) to slow the spread of fire eastward toward Waterton Lake, as conditions permit,” Parks Canada said in a release. “Glacier National Park Air Attack is over the fire at this time.”
Parks Canada has closed all backcountry areas and hiking trails.
Park staff evacuated backcountry campgrounds and swept trails in Waterton on Thursday. The evacuation alert was “shared door-todoor throughout the community of Waterton Park, on social media and through Alberta Emergency Alerts.”
Alison Darling-Thorburn said her mother was camping in the park Thursday night when she was displaced due to the threat of fire.
“My mother was camping at the campground and RCMP woke her up in the middle of the night and told them they had to leave because of the fire,” she said on Facebook.
“So they had to pack up in the middle of the night and head back to Calgary.”
Kevin Hicks, general manager of Waymarker Hospitality, said people seem generally calm despite the fire threatening the town.
“The guests are still coming in. We’ve had a few cancellations but everything is running as normal in the town,” Hicks said, adding that the town was getting some rain Friday night and that it was “quite cool” outside.
Hicks said they have regulations in place to assist guests to evacuate the town, should the order come down.
“We have people that are trained to assist the guests and get them out,” he said. “We have a muster meeting point for all of our staff and then we would disperse from there.”
The Kenow wildfire, which started in B.C. before it jumped the border into Alberta, triggered an evacuation of Waterton Lakes National Park on Sept. 7, 2017.
Hicks said he and his staff were just talking about it the other day.
“We survived it last year, and we will survive it again this year for sure.”
The mandatory evacuation order that came with the Kenow fire was issued as strong winds from an approaching cold front pushed flames east from a large wildfire burning just across the continental divide in B.C., about 30 kilometres west of the townsite.
By the time the smoke cleared, Parks Canada said, the wildfire burned 38,000 hectares of forest, including 19,303 hectares in the park.
Parks Canada said over 80 per cent of the hiking trail network was damaged by the Kenow fire. The visitor centre, Crandell Mountain campground, Canyon youth camp, alpine stables, staff housing and water and electrical systems were also destroyed by the fire.