WATERTON EVACUATION ALERT
Wildfire danger lurks
WATERTON Residents in the Waterton townsite were told Wednesday “we are confident that there is a sufficient enough risk to put you on alert and ask you to be ready to go when we need you to go.”
These were the words from Ifan Thomas, superintendent at Waterton Lakes National Park, during a standing-room-only meeting at the community hall Wednesday afternoon.
“We’ve given you an evacuation alert,” Thomas told the crowd. “You need to be prepared to go when we give you an evacuation order. There’s enough of a likelihood that we have to do that.”
Late Tuesday, Parks Canada issued an evacuation alert for all of Waterton Lakes National Park. Officials say the B.C. Kenow Fire has not advanced further into Waterton but that it continues to expand.
“There is no immediate threat, but this pre-emptive alert allows us to be ready for a forecasted change in weather in a couple of days,” said Elisabeth Caron, public relations and communications officer for Parks Canada. “Parks Canada will continue to manage the fire and plans to use helicopters to bucket water if possible.”
The entirety of Waterton Lakes National Park remains closed, with the exception of the townsite, Highways 5 and 6 and the Chief Mountain Highway.
Two initial attack crews were in transit Wednesday and another dedicated crew is working on facility and infrastructure protection using water pumps and sprinklers throughout the park and the Waterton townsite.
Scott Murphy, deputy incident commander and fire management officer at Parks Canada for Waterton Lakes National Park, says they are watching very closely.
“It is historically dry and we are seeing fires do things this summer that we do not typically see them do,” he said. “This is not a normal fire year.”
Stephen Cornelsen, Parks Canada’s incident commander for the fire, was asked by concerned residents about what they are doing to stop, slow down or manage the situation. He said direct action on the continental divide with helicopter attacks and air tankers was the primary tactic.
“We have put a huge effort into resourcing, planning and getting ready for the worst-case scenario,” he said. “If the fire crosses the continental divide and comes into Waterton Park, we can’t be in control of it.
“There’s a lot of variables around that but any uncontrolled fire on our side of the rocks is a serious threat to the townsite”
“The weather has co-operated, in some sense that there is no wind,” he added. “The wind is eventually going to start blowing again. When that happens, this 7,500-hectare fire is going to want to cross the continental divide. We are one bad burning day away from a major event here. We have to have contingency plans. The ultimate goal is to keep it away. We are battling this thing.”
“Public safety comes first with our respect to our response to the wildfire situation,” Environment and Parks Minister Shannon Phillips told reporters at Lethbridge College Wednesday morning. “Taking those precautionary measures means that if we do get into an unpredictable situation, first responders can be doing their job.”
Phillips says the province has activated an operations centre and augmented its response level.
“We have a number of co-ordination aspects happening right now between us, Parks Canada and still working closely with the government of British Columbia. The next couple of days are going to be pretty critical on this. We are prepared for an eventual evacuation if that happens. Our province is ready to respond should it be necessary.”
Phillips will provide a further update today.
Dennis Madsen, Resource Conservation Manager at Parks Canada, says a wind shift is expected Friday or Saturday.
“The message we’re trying to get out with this evacuation alert is, ‘If you’re not here, now is not the time to visit’,” he said.