logo
ENع
#

Latest news with #Canmore

Dog killed in Canmore elk attack: Fish and Wildlife
Dog killed in Canmore elk attack: Fish and Wildlife

CTV News

time6 days ago

  • CTV News

Dog killed in Canmore elk attack: Fish and Wildlife

Alberta Fish and Wildlife says a dog was killed by a elk in Canmore last week. In a statement sent to CTV News, Fish and Wildlife said officers were called to the area at 10 a.m. on Sunday, May 25 for reports an elk had charged a dog, injuring it. Officials say the dog didn't survive the attack. The elk was gone when officers arrived. Fish and Wildlife officers are using the tragic event to illustrate the importance of being cautious when in areas where elk are commonly seen. 'Remember that all elk can be dangerous during any season,' Fish and Wildlife said in a statement. 'Female elk can be especially aggressive during calving season (mid-May to early July). Male elk can be aggressive during the autumn rut (September to November).' Signs of an agitated elk include: staring with flattened ears and raised rump hair, curled lips, grinding teeth, charging and kicking. Backcountry visitors are encouraged to stay at least 30 metres away from elk and avoid taking pets into areas where elk are calving. 'If you must take your pets, keep them on leash at all times,' Fish and Wildlife said. If you are approached by an elk, Fish and Wildlife says to:

It could all go up in flames: Why Banff and Bow Valley face mounting wildfire peril
It could all go up in flames: Why Banff and Bow Valley face mounting wildfire peril

National Post

time26-05-2025

  • National Post

It could all go up in flames: Why Banff and Bow Valley face mounting wildfire peril

Article content The agony of last summer's Jasper wildfire casts a long shadow across the Bow Valley. The blaze left a smouldering $1.23 billion in devastating costs to the Jasper area, while also leaving experts predicting — and residents worrying — that other pristine mountain communities such as Banff and Canmore could be next. Canmore resident Sarah Elmeligi — who resides more than 300 kilometres away from the Jasper blaze — recalls the ominous reach of that wildfire, which left one-third of the mountain town to the north incinerated. 'It's amazing Jasper still exists,' says Elmeligi, the MLA for Banff-Cochrane. 'The day after the fire there was ash on my car. . . There were little bits of Jasper. 'It really carried a lot of worry over, 'How prepared are we?' It could happen to us just as easily.' Some of those fleeing Jasper's partial destruction made their way to Canmore, she said, further underlining the threat hanging over the fast-growing community an hour west of Calgary. 'The stories we heard were so heartbreaking. It really makes you want to take more action,' said Elmeligi, who's also a wildlife biologist. Action is what many are calling for throughout the Bow Valley, which extends from the picturesque Bow Glacier in Banff National Park through to Lake Louise and the bustling Banff townsite, before then reaching outside the park to the growing communities of Canmore and Exshaw. Banff has long sparkled as one of Canada's natural jewels, becoming the country's first national park in 1885. Its beauty attracts more than four million visitors from around the globe each year, for myriad reasons. The majestic peaks of the Rocky Mountains stretch endlessly into the sky. Shimmering glaciers curl into valleys. Hot springs bubble from the ground. Fairytale-like coniferous forests line turquoise lakes, providing an ideal home for wildlife ranging from beavers and bears to moose and mountain goats. It's why Banff has become an internationally renowned destination for recreation and relaxation. Experts caution, however, it could all go up in flames. 'It's just so primed to burn, you can't stop it — I don't think Banff has time,' Cliff White, a former Parks Canada forestry scientist said last summer. A wildfire in the area would be devastating, dwarfing the mega costs of the 2024 Jasper wildfire. Economic devastation would be amplified due to the Bow Valley's much larger population and visitor numbers. That would also mean an increased chance of injuries or deaths of people, along with a bevy of negative impacts on the environment, wildlife, tourism, insurance rates, transportation and commerce, since vital rail lines and the Trans-Canada Highway run right through the area. As NDP MLA Elmeligi notes, the impacts of climate change have dried forest fuel, making for potentially more explosive blazes and that means residents in the valley have entered a new frontier of hazard. 'We don't really know what we're up against because every fire is more than the last. (Jasper residents) felt prepared, but a fire like that is so much more intense,' said Elmeligi. A few kilometres up the Bow River and on the other side of Tunnel Mountain, the Town of Banff's fire chief, Keri Martens, discusses how neighbourhoods there are becoming more fire resistant and why the sense of urgency has increased. 'We've seen fires come through municipalities and come through towns for quite a few years, but there was something about Jasper that really hit home for a lot of Banff residents,' said Martens. White has warned the valley is a tinder box ripe for a catastrophic fire, and with an increasing number of people pouring into the region to bask in its mountain majesty, the stakes are high. On busy summer days, there are 50,000 to 100,000 residents and visitors in the valley potentially at risk of injury or death by a rapidly advancing fire, he said, adding escape for many could be in question in a severe scenario. 'Moreover, many of these people may be on single in-and-out out access roads (such as roads to Sulphur Mountain, Norquay and Lake Louise lakeside) or even on scenic lifts to mountain ridges,' which makes escape from flames very difficult, said White. While Banff's population remains relatively static due to growth restrictions in the national park, on a typical summer day with a heavy visitation and tourism presence, its population can swell from 9,000 residents to 43,000. Visitation to Banff National Park has grown by 31 per cent in the past decade, with nearly 4.3 million people seeing the sights in 2023-2024. Canmore's population has grown from 15,500 to 17,200 over the past five years and with a massive development (the Three Sisters Mountain Village) approved there, that number is expected to double over the next 20 years. A leader in Calgary's philanthropic and energy community, Jim Gray, says he's watched with alarm the growing wildfire menace posed to the valley and has thus formed a volunteer committee — the Bow Valley Wildfire Forum — to press governments to take more focused, concerted steps to reduce it. The area's economic role and iconic standing are at grave risk should a catastrophic wildfire lay waste to it, he said. 'Our reputation would be injured if it burned the way Jasper burned,' said Gray, who has a home in Harvie Heights near Banff National Park's east gate. He noted 20 per cent of the nation's rail exports travel by train through the Bow Valley, which forms the heart of a tourism mecca vital to Calgary's and Alberta's economies. 'The more we've delved into it, the more we recognize it's a very important issue. … The danger is real,' said Gray. In this year's budget, Alberta's UCP government increased its spending on wildfire monitoring by $900,000 to $1.9 million and has increased its wildfire fighting expenditure by $5 million, to $160 million. However, the NDP's Elmeligi said the province hasn't kept pace with the mounting wildfire threat: 'This government is so far behind in how we manage these issues.' A spokesman for Alberta Forestry and Parks countered that the $160 million is a record sum and that the ministry led the effort among regional partners in the Bow Valley. 'The Bow Valley Wildfire and Vegetation Management Strategy, approved in January 2025, is a guiding document that assessed and prioritized vegetation management needs in the Bow Valley to address wildfire issues,' Neil Singh said in an email. 'Responsible forest management, including targeted harvesting, thinning and prescribed burns, can reduce wildfire risk. Alberta's approach balances conservation with safety to protect the Bow Valley.' New disasters in the future Wildfire experts who have been warily watching the timbered slopes rising up from the Bow River and the catastrophic Alberta wildfires of the past several years say it's only a matter of time before a big blaze erupts west of Calgary. 'Are we going to have new disasters in the future? Unfortunately, we will. … All of the communities in the Bow Valley are at risk,' says wildfire consultant Rick Arthur. 'These (mitigation efforts) are very important.' Arthur, who served as a forestry and wildfire official with the Alberta government from 1974 until his retirement in 2012, said the last century in the Bow Valley and in other forested areas has been a lost one in dealing with the threat of big fires. An obsession with fire suppression has increasingly skewed the Rocky Mountain woodlands toward becoming a tinderbox and away from the practices of First Nations people who regularly used burn-offs to manage their environment, he said. 'It's been bred into us that natural is good, human disturbance is bad; but these landscapes have always had humans in them,' said Arthur. First Nations people in the Bow Valley regularly burned wooded areas to clear the land and green it up so it would attract their prey — bison — and it helped them in dozens of other ways, he said, including foraging for edible mushrooms and preventing tick infestations. European settlement put a stop to that by ending First Nations burning practises with the creation of Banff National Park in 1885, said Arthur. This allowed forest growth to spread unhindered while fuel gathered around the trees' trunks, creating wildfire hazard. Trees damaged by the elements have exacerbated that fuel load, which hasn't been burned off as it was by the first inhabitants of the land, he said, adding the last major wildfire to sweep the corridor was in the 1880s. Arthur noted the Bow Valley looked very different in the late 1800s, the proof being a treasure trove of photos taken by surveyors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A team that's included Arthur has tracked down the spots from where those images were snapped and repeated the exercise to get a clear picture of the contrast between then and now. Those older images of landscapes throughout Alberta and B.C. have been digitized and provided online as part of the Mountain Legacy Project. 'There were hardly any trees on Grotto and Lady McDonald Mountains. … The area around the (Fairmont) Banff Springs was wide open,' he said, standing in Canmore while sweeping his hand toward the now-timber covered peaks to the town's north. 'Indigenous burning kept these landscapes wide open.' Creating a strategically placed network of firebreaks to impede the progress of timber blazes, he said, isn't an assault on the environment. 'It's not that we're damaging the environment; we're creating ecosystems and biodiversity,' said Arthur. The explosive threat, he said, shouldn't be underestimated. He reeled off a litany of major wildfires over the past century, citing a monster blaze near Barrhead in 1968 that jumped the Athabasca River and surged nearly 70 kilometres in a single day. 'The energy reflected by that was the size of a Hiroshima-sized bomb every 10 minutes,' said Arthur. The Chisholm fire near Slave Lake in 2001 revealed an almost diabolical power to destroy, hurling 130 ignitable embers per square metre. In late June 2021, those in Lytton, B.C., had 12 minutes to get ready for a raging fire to enter the town, which was incinerated in 20 minutes; 'but, they had 100 years to prepare,' said Arthur. 'If your roof's covered with pine needles, that's an ignition bed that will light; it's just simple physics,' said Arthur, who was instrumental in creating the FireSmart program more than two decades ago that crafted precautions for urban-wildland interfaces. Scientists are convinced higher temperatures have dried forest fuel, making wildfires more ferocious and fire seasons longer. Arthur said that may play a part but to him, larger numbers of people living in wooded areas and many decades of fire suppression that have ignored the ways of the past are greater culprits. 'It's far greater than climate change; solving that isn't the silver bullet,' he said. 'If you want to live in the trees, you're placing yourself at greater risk.' The nightmare scenario, he said, is multiple fires raging simultaneously — a not unlikely scenario 'where we become overextended' to fight them. As that risk has grown, so has the appreciation of it and a willingness to confront it using the best data at hand that didn't exist just a few short years ago, said Arthur. One of the challenges in the past was weaponizing science on the front lines of the wildfire struggle, he said, 'where the science people were geeks and had trouble connecting with the operational people.' Fortunately, that's been changing, he said, as has the hands-on approach. That mindset has indeed undergone a dramatic switch, said Katherine Severson, director of emergency management for the Town of Banff, which she notes has been proactive in reducing the risk both at the homeowner and public lands level. But she said a worst-case scenario involving a high intensity blaze, such as a category-four fire, remains an ever-present threat. 'If we experience those conditions then we will be up against a devastating wildfire. There's no way to mince words on that,' Severson told a panel discussion in Banff last February. 'There simply isn't enough time to do all the work in the snap of our fingers.' In an interview, she said emergency responders in the town are bracing for a high-hazard fire season after the area received just 50 per cent of the normal amount of snowfall last winter. 'We are anticipating and preparing for an increased fire risk due to overall drought conditions and heat. There's no secret we've had elevated wildfire situations and don't expect that to change,' said Severson. 'It's the new normal.' Wildfires are hotter, faster and earlier Moments after watching a spray of water cascading from a 100-metre fire suppression tower during a demonstration at the Canmore Golf and Curling Club, MD of Bighorn acting fire Chief Rob Duffy said he needs all the help he can get in guarding the vast expanse of timbered wilderness he oversees. He's seen the consequences of what climate scientists say come from a warming world. 'Wildfires are a lot more intense now than we've ever seen,' said Duffy, noting a rapid assault on burgeoning blazes is more vital than ever. Fire seasons also arrive noticeably earlier, he said, adding his crew battled a 16.5-hectare blaze in late February. 'We had no snow, meaning it was very dry and a campfire got away into some dry grass,' Duffy said. Two days later, another blaze erupted near Water Valley northwest of Calgary after a rural residents' burn pile ignited the surrounding landscape, sparking a response from three different fire departments. When a wildfire scorched Jasper last summer, Duffy's crew was set to head north to battle it but were suddenly confronted with an out-of-control blaze near Water Valley that led to evacuations. 'It's only going to get busier,' Duffy said. And while he lauds the erection of more fireguards and other measures, he echoed the sentiments of Jane Park, a fire management specialist with Parks Canada: These measures only go so far. 'It's a process we can put in place — the fireguards give us more time but it's not going to stop a fire,' Duffy said. The mounting threat has paid some positive dividends. Residents and municipalities have banded together to minimize the risk and impact of wildfires, he added. Last year, residents of Harvie Heights near Canmore were presented with a proposed fire break 75 metres wide. The residents quickly suggested one twice that width — a request that was fulfilled. 'A lot of good changes have been coming. It's good to see municipalities working together,' he said. His own municipal district has also been focused on proactive mitigation, including targeting areas with particularly heavy fuel loads. But the fear a monstrous fire could rampage beyond any attempts at human-crafted controls remains, fuelled by what he calls a landscape molded by too many years of conventional forest management — and even the fire-suppressing success of people like him. '(The forest) doesn't look the way it should look. It's not in its natural state anymore,' said Duffy. Parks Canada has been working on multiple wildfire mitigation projects in the Bow Valley, among them the 165-hectare Lake Louise community fireguard. Around 70 hectares were completed by the end of March and the full project is expected to be complete by March 2027. Located west of Lake Louise, the barrier aims to prevent fire from being swept into the area by wind. A 220-hectare wildfire risk reduction project called Tunnel Toe, for its proximity to the Tunnel Mountain area, will reduce fuel for wildfire. Situated east of the town of Banff, Tunnel Toe will lower risk for the townsite, along with Harvie Heights and Canmore. About 70 hectares were completed last winter, with the remainder to follow this year. 'If a fire (was) coming down the Bow Valley or coming out of the Cascade River Valley … it forms a feature that wildfire managers can use to help contain and slow the spread of fire,' said Park. However, the risk of wildfire can't be eliminated. 'With 100 kilometre winds and things, there's very limited things that will stop (that),' added Park, who's also an incident commander for Banff National Park. 'Fires will happen. We do our best ahead of time to do as much prevention and mitigation work as we can.' For wildfires, embers create further potential for spread, according to Park. 'Even if you have done all this work, if the embers come in and they land, say, in somebody's yard, and the yard is full of debris. … That one ember can (set fire) to the structures,' she said. Parks Canada said it has prescribe-burned nearly 15,000 hectares in Banff National Park since 2002 and plans to similarly manage 1,629 hectares within 15 kilometres of the Banff townsite. On its website, the agency noted it is 'creating a more diverse and resilient landscape in Banff National Park through its fire management program.' 'This program includes both restoration and wildfire risk reduction work. Resilient landscapes include a healthy combination of forests and grasslands that can persist in the face of climate change and increased wildfire.' Last November, construction began on a fireguard to protect Canmore, Harvie Heights, the Canmore Nordic Centre and the hamlet of Dead Man's Flats, 10 kilometres to the east. It is expected to be completed in late 2026. 'While wildfires can happen anywhere, the community fireguard will increase the ability to respond to and protect communities,' Canmore deputy fire chief Mike Bourgon told a panel discussion on wildfire mitigation last February. 'It was constructed with the most recent wildfire behaviour information, on-the-ground analysis of vegetation and technical review of Alberta Wildfire.' Near the other end of the valley at Lake Louise, much of the recent current work is reducing the intensity of fire in the approaches to the community, said Charlie McLellan, a Parks Canada fire-vegetation expert. 'The objective is … to bring the crown fire down to a surface fire, one that would have less of those embers,' he said. 'The community guard would be like a last effort to contain a wildfire.' He listed off numerous other forest-thinning, fireguard and prescribed burn projects throughout the park designed to stem the progress of any wildfire toward the Banff township or Canmore. What needs to happen The history of post-First Nations fire wildfire mitigation in the Bow Valley dates back nearly 140 years, when an 1889 blaze almost torched the newly built Banff Springs Hotel. In response, fire breaks were built on the lower reaches of Sulphur Mountain, with the current sports field just to the north of the hotel the legacy of that work, said White, the former Parks Canada forestry scientist who remains active in efforts to tame the next big blaze. 'What we're going through now with this cycle of firebreaks is the fourth one,' said the Canmore resident. Other phases were undertaken in the 1930s and '40s, and again in the 1980s. Once the Canadian Pacific Railway was punched through the Rockies, sparks from trains would ignite fires in the valley and roughly mimic the pattern of First Nations forest management. Since then, successive phases of timber removal and other measures have been taken to shield Banff and Canmore, with one particular cleared zone northwest of the latter centre at Carrot Creek dating back to 2003 being of considerable prominence. The Alberta government subsequently cleared fuel breaks on the other side of the valley below Mount Rundle. But many of those haven't been properly maintained, becoming overgrown and littered with fire fuel over time, said White. '(Carrot Creek) was working 20 years ago; it's just that it's overgrown and we've got to do something closer to town,' he said. 'There's no maintenance or operations plan and that's what's failing.' With the lack of follow-up on tending to prescribed burn areas and other breaks 'we are doing about one-fifth of what needs to be done just for maintenance, and given the backlog of biomass accumulated, we are at about one-tenth of what should be done for the next two to three decades,' said the scientist. To head off forest blazes pushing into both main towns, an intensive management of roughly 100 square kilometres of mountain terrain should be done over a 20- to 40-year cycle, added White. Veteran forestry industry figure Rick Doman questions whether governments have comprehensive, collaborative plans on how to prevent vastly destructive blazes in the valley and believes they're too focused on firebreak defence rather than prevention. 'We don't know if the province has a plan; we haven't seen a plan,' said Doman, a member of the Bow Valley Wildfire Forum and co-founder of Boreal Carbon Corp. The group wants a landscape-level forest inventory and risk map created through satellite data with surface verification combined with wind pattern modelling. Doman also said timber harvesting in the national park to create firebreaks too often culls old growth, healthy trees and should focus more on thinning forests by removing diseased and dying conifers which add to wildfire severity. 'Healthy forests can withstand wildfire; the intensification of the fire is what is happening so we should be taking the deadfall out,' said Doman, pointing to a satellite image of the Bow Valley taped to a wall during a recent meeting. That strategic thinning is preferable to prescribed burns which are risky and pose health and environmental risks, he said. 'Why would you create particulates (microscopic particles from a wildfire) that are harmful to health,' questioned Doman. '(Additionally), if we let them (fires) burn, we're emitting huge amounts of carbon,' said Doman, who has advised Alaska and B.C. First Nations on forest management. One way to reduce the impact of disposing of forest floor fuel would be through non-profit biomass incinerators that would produce locally consumed energy, he added. Doman said he also fears the harvesting of lumber-worthy trees that are sold to mills to finance mitigation efforts has led to the commercialization of the activity in a national park. It's time for a world-class sustainable forest management program that reflects the best practices from near and far. Sharing of expertise and experts is a must, as is a unified approaching involving federal, provincial and municipal governments and forestry-related agencies, he said. Better forest management would also stem the march of disease-bearing pests such as the mountain pine beetle which has been so devastating in B.C. and in helping foment the Jasper fire, said Doman. 'We don't want to have that in Alberta,' he said. Residents work to FireSmart properties After living for nearly three decades on the lower slopes of the heavily timbered Sulphur Mountain, Chris Worobets has learned to live with the threat of wildfire literally in his own backyard. But in recent years, and like many of his neighbours, the Banff resident has taken action to lower the risk of learning the hardest of lessons. 'Prior to 1979 this was a forest, and then its trees were removed when they began the construction of the neighbourhood here. So we are situated in a forest,' said Worobets, while showing reporters what measures he's implemented. 'In about 2006, we replaced all of our cedar shingles with asphalt, fire-resistant shingles,' he noted. That was only a harbinger of much more concerted fire-mitigation efforts that in the past six years led to the removal of 87,000 kilograms of potential fire fuel from the neighbourhood, he said. 'So that's branches, tree stems, the whole works. And that's all conifer trees, because they're the flammable ones.' That required 1,100 volunteer hours from community members, many of whom have gone well beyond that, said Worobets, chairman of the area's FireSmart program. He pointed to four of the 50 less flammable leaf trees that residents have planted to take the place of fire-spreading conifers that have been removed. Worobets also gestured to a sprinkler kit covering his entire property that, even if he's not home at the time of a wildfire, a neighbour can easily set up. '(Of) fourteen people I worked with over the years with Parks Canada who retired in Jasper, seven of them lost their houses in the fire last year,' he said. 'One of them was not home when the evacuation order was given, so his home burned. So by doing this, we're hoping we can increase the survivability of our property.' Some of those kits, said Worobets, were acquired with subsidies from the Town of Banff, which offers nearly $100,000 in rebates for those who FireSmart their properties. Ideally, homeowners will also ensure there's no flammable materials within 1.5 metres of their homes while easily ignited vegetation is removed within a 10-metre radius. 'We've done most of what they call the immediate zone, the zero to one and a half metres,' he said. 'We're working on the intermediate zone . . . . So, we're going to remove a few more conifers here, which will allow the deciduous trees to grow a little bit better.' Vegetation management in Banff began two decades ago with the latest effort being residents' removal of 300 trees from their properties so far this year, while the town eliminated another 300 trees around critical infrastructure, said Banff Fire Chief Martens. 'That's quite significant but I don't if I'll ever say we're done,' she said. 'Everything taken out grows back so we're at the stage of doing maintenance.' Those FireSmart measures have been widely replicated throughout the Bow Valley as part of the 'from your roof to your region' approach that links homeowner efforts to forests far from town where crews have mechanically carved fire breaks or performed prescribed burns. Cliff White, the former Parks Canada wildfire scientist, said shifting some responsibilities to the local level and away from hard-pressed larger firefighting organizations is one solution. 'Establish, wherever possible, community forests where local municipal governments assume responsibility to integrate fire risk reduction 'from your roof to your region,'' he said. 'This level of government has the strongest local knowledge, taxation and legislative authority, and an ongoing strong interest to protect its local citizens. '(It's) the only level that can mandate that individual's and neighbourhood's structural and landscape FireSmart programs are logically integrated with the surrounding community forest risk reduction program.' Evacuation? More than one route out of town is needed The Banff Avenue bridge over the Bow River that carries so many carefree visitors to popular tourist sites could become a dangerous chokepoint amid a wildfire evacuation. That's the evaluation of the town's emergency responders who are closely monitoring the fire hazard in and around the busy hospitality hub. 'Banff already has traffic management challenges and those challenges are only exacerbated when we contemplate evacuation,' said Katherine Severson, the town's director of emergency management. 'We have limited egress in Banff and in the valley. … We might have to make decisions sooner than other jurisdictions.' In the case of a rapid evacuation, the only motorized exit route out of the tourist mecca is the Trans-Canada Highway and that applies to other locales such as Lake Louise, she noted. 'We recognize there's a possibility more than one community is evacuated at the same time,' said Severson. 'We don't ever try to downplay these road network challenges but we've put a lot of things in place to mitigate them.' One approach is for early and phased evacuation of neighbourhoods, if there's time, she said. Another solution not yet in place is developing, in conjunction with Parks Canada, contingency routes to ease evacuation, said Severson. In the event of a serious fire event, the town is also working with the federal agency to determine decision-making thresholds dependent on the type and severity of a situation, she said. 'There's a possibility we will have some amount of time to know the fire will be a threat to our community and we will at some point contemplate when to request an evacuation of this town,' said Severson, adding various cellphone alerts and even door-to-door notification would be activated. During fire season, it's very likely more visitors than residents will be evacuated and hotel operators have been trained and issued planning details to that end, she said. As for fighting any blaze approaching the town, Banff's fire chief said extinguishing embers flying ahead of the main fire body would be a priority, with hopes that residents' defensive FireSmart efforts will pay dividends. 'Ninety per cent of homes that burn in wildfires burn when embers migrate,' said Martens. Additionally, emergency officials remain in close contact with Parks Canada staff for updates on the wildland wildfire risks beyond town boundaries, she said. 'It's important for us to use those relationships we have. … We'll contact Parks Canada vegetation specialists multiple times a week and during high-risk times, multiple times a day,' said Martens. Meanwhile, nearby Canmore has put in place similar emergency plans that also include urging residents to assemble a 72-hour evacuation kit while ensuring vehicles are topped up with fuel during high-hazard periods, said Caitlin Miller, the town's manager of protective services. Canmore contends with a visitor-heavy reality shared with Banff, she said. 'We consider the impacts of visitation to Banff as well because to get to Banff, you have to drive through Canmore,' Miller told a Feb. 25 panel discussion. The key to preparedness and an efficient response for both firefighting and evacuation is close collaboration with neighbouring jurisdictions, and to ensure residents have timely information, she said. 'Out of Jasper (last year) we heard lots of situations of neighbours reaching out to each other to make sure they have the right information,' said Miller. Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert says his town has not only the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 1A as evacuation routes; the Spray Lakes Road into Kananaskis is another option. But he said that can't be expected to banish concerns over the wildfire threat. 'I don't think there's anyone who faces the potential wildfire threat at this time of year who doesn't have an underlying anxiety,' said Krausert. 'But we're as prepared as we've ever been and we continue to build on that.' The first phase of the fireguard shielding Canmore is being built on south-facing slopes to the town's northwest, whose terrain is driest and most vulnerable to fire, said the mayor. And he said his expectation a fire would come from the west, or the Banff side has shifted, with more winds now originating from the south in recent years. But one thing is certain — the interconnectedness of all the wildfire mitigation now being undertaken in the valley, said Krausert. 'What we do in Canmore protects Banff and what they do protects us,' he said. Fire-fighting innovations and technologies: Looking for solutions Childhood memories of twice fleeing raging wildfires in Swan Hills have stuck with Don Hallett. 'I was playing with my Hot Wheels and my mom said, 'It's time to go,' ' Hallett said of one of those evacuations. 'I remember thinking, 'Geez, I sure hope we have a home to come back to.' We moved after the second one (evacuation).' Decades later, Hallett founded Wildfire Innovations, an Alberta company that produces fire suppression equipment that includes Rainstream, a mobile, 30-metre tower that can push out 1,000 gallons of water a minute through a sprinkler head boasting 360-degree coverage. On the trailer component of a unit demonstrating its fire-suppressing potential in Canmore in April is painted the name Jean, a tribute to Hallett's wildfire-vigilant mother. Depending on the intensity of the water delivery, the unit has a range of up to 700 metres, said Hallett, with a single person able to operate it. 'We bring rain, targeted rain. … It's designed to protect homes,' he said. 'Growing up in northern Alberta, I recognized not much had changed (in fighting wildfires). People needed more helping in doing that.' Its lofty reach can douse flames dangerously erupting in the crowns of conifer trees and its structure dismantled in five minutes to be moved and erected to face fresh threats, he said. Drawing from natural water sources like rivers or lakes, it can also be deployed as protection for firefighters battling forest blazes. But the main intent of the system is to act as a last line of defence for communities in a wildfire's path, said Rolf Wenzel, Wildfire Innovations' CEO. 'If we had a half dozen of these in a one-kilometre line, we'd have a wall of water, said Wenzel. 'You have to look at this as a military campaign. If a fire starts in Banff, it'll be here (in Canmore) in a couple of hours.' Watching the demonstration of the Rainstream tower hurl a cascade of water, with Mount Rundle looming in the background, was Duffy, the MD of Bighorn acting fire chief. 'This is just one more application that supports the response of the fire department,' said Duffy, who does have questions about its use in remote areas with limited water access. Even so, this is equipment that could be shared between communities to minimize the cost. Rainstream is one of a number of approaches and new technologies being used to offset the growing menace of wildfires. Duffy pointed to another tool, a tower-mounted set of cameras that can detect and pinpoint the presence of smoke. That information is then passed instantly to firefighters' cellphone apps. 'It gives us a really quick trigger to investigate,' he said of the system that his fire department is assessing in a pilot project. He displays a photo of mountains and woodland whose scenery is broken up by a dense column of dark smoke — an alert sent in real time by the battery of cameras many kilometres away. Meanwhile, the system Calgarian Zubin Kothawala's team has developed for the past four years employs cameras in a similar fashion but backs that up with artificial intelligence that calculates early detection and prediction. Those forecasts cull data from more than 40 different sources from local weather stations that can measure factors like forest fuel and moisture levels, he said. 'It tells you where your fire will be most devastating, down to one-kilometre blocks, so communities can have an action plan to manage those risks,' said Kothawala, CEO of FireMark. He offers a scenario in which a lightning-sparked blaze is detected by his system's cameras within four minutes while its AI calculations determine whether that fire's smoke is from a campfire or something more serious. 'We have a dashboard for alarms that'll send text messages or emails (to firefighters) and they'll be able to access a web-based platform to tell you, 'OK, where is the fire going,' by looking at the spread model,' said Kothawala. A federal government-based wildfire prediction system dating back to the 1980s is increasingly obsolete, he said, providing a window of opportunity for products like his. That'll become even more comparatively clear with his company's intention to revert its ground-based sensors to those based on satellite surveillance. But he said selling the system — which would cost small local customers $1,000 a month — is a challenge given regulatory red tape and municipalities' expectation the cost will be borne by provincial governments. And the growing wildfire threat has sparked a profusion of wildfire detection and suppression competitors. He notes an Edmonton-based firm has already been working with the Alberta government with a similar AI-based system. 'It's very cutthroat … everyone needs it,' said Kothawala, whose company is proposing a pilot project with B.C. municipalities. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering have explored the merits of using drones to battle wildfires, either as eyes in the sky or as attack craft. With climate change increasing the severity and size of wildfires and stretching firefighting resources beyond their limits, exploring the merits of cheaper and safer remotely controlled aircraft in fighting them seemed a worthy pursuit, said Schuyler Hinman, associate professor of mechanical and manufacturing engineering. The U of C study found only 50 or 60 of B.C.'s 400,000 freshwater lakes on the province's mainland are frequently tapped for firefighting purposes — a number that could be expanded significantly with smaller drones. Key to that research is drawing from a uniquely expansive wildfire database offered by the B.C. government that dates back to 1917. It has recorded information on all the wildfires since then, locations of firefighting bases and the lakes that can be used. While drones would have a far smaller water-carrying capability than conventional tankers — 50 to 120 litres versus 1,300 litres — a larger number of unmanned vehicles could make more trips closer to fires, while also being able to scoop water from smaller lakes that are inaccessible to larger piloted planes, he said. While research continues to offer increased options in preventing and fighting wildfires, those living in risk-filled areas such as the Bow Valley highlight the fact that action needs to occur as soon as possible. As Jim Gray notes, 'Wildfires don't care if there's a plan in place or not. … They don't wait for us to be ready. We just need to be ready.' — With files from Steven Wilhelm BKaufmann@ X: @ BillKaufmannjrn Share this article in your social network Comments You must be logged in to join the discussion or read more comments. Create an Account Sign in Join the Conversation Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

CCTV released as police probe destruction of Scottish city monument
CCTV released as police probe destruction of Scottish city monument

The National

time09-05-2025

  • The National

CCTV released as police probe destruction of Scottish city monument

The Mercat Cross in Dunfermline was snapped in half, with debris left scattered across the High Street at the junction of Guildhall Street, overnight from Saturday, April 12, to Sunday, April 13. There has been a Mercat Cross in Dunfermline since at least 1396, when the Burgh received its charter, according to the national historic environment record Canmore. Other estimates say it may be two centuries older than that. The Dunfermline cross before and after the damage earlier in April (Image: Dunfermline Press) The cross has been repaired and replaced many times over the centuries, and the one which was damaged earlier in April had been raised and resourced by public subscription in 1868, Fife Council archaeologist Douglas Speirs said previously. Police previously described two men who they said could help with enquiries. Officers said the first was in his early 20s, white, around 5ft 8/9ins tall, slim build, brownish hair, thick eyebrows, sideburns and an earring in his left ear. He was wearing a baby blue-coloured hoodie, tan-coloured trousers and white/light trainers. The second was described as also in his early 20s, white, about 5ft 9/10ins tall, medium build, brown hair, long messy on top, trimmed short at the sides, short stubble growth. He was wearing a thin black jacket with small writing on the right shoulder, a black t-shirt with white writing and a yellow logo, black jogging bottoms, grey Nike Air Max shoes. CCTV image of the men who the police would like to speak with (Image: Police Scotland) Now, officers have released a CCTV image of men they say could help with enquiries and are appealing for the men themselves, or anyone who may recognise them, to get in touch. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "I would urge the men pictured or anyone who may recognise them to contact us'. Anyone who can assist is asked to contact Police Scotland via 101, quoting incident number 1093 of 13 April, 2025. Alternatively, you can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 where information can be given anonymously.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store