There are few things constant in the world of fire management. Witness the changes in the fire danger rating for Jasper National Park over the past two weeks. A hot, dry period pushed Parks to elevate the status to extreme, urging caution for all those planning to start campfires. Days later, a bit of rain had provided the right conditions for a small burn along the shores of Lake Edith as part of a FireSmart work bee.

“We have to adapt to the weather and the forecast isn’t always accurate,” said FireSmart — ForestWise project manager Alan Westhaver. One thing that is a constant in Westhaver’s summer, however, is the presence of Junior Forest Rangers hard at work in the park.

“We host them every year,” Westhaver said. “For five or six years we actually hosted a crew in Jasper for the entire summer.” Those days are gone now, but crews from Nordegg and Hinton do spend one week each working alongside Westhaver and the rest of the management team in Jasper National Park.

“They work on various projects within the vegetation program,” Westhaver said. The majority of the Nordegg group’s time in Jasper will be spent restoring a large gravel pit along Highway 93.

“It’s where they used to store the rodeo stock when the event was held out by the Whistlers campground,” Westhaver said. “Our goal is to restore at least one of these gravel pits every year. There are dozens of them, and though some have recovered naturally, the majority are still pretty rough. They provide breeding grounds for non-native plants which then go on to invade the rest of the park, so restoring them with natural, native vegetation is a great benefit.”

Having 11 apprentice forest rangers working on the project is essential to its completion, Westhaver added.

“A lot of these projects are very labour intensive, and we sure do appreciate all their efforts. Without them, it would take a lot longer to get these restorations done.”

There’s a lot more to the forest ranger program than providing many hands to make Parks’ workload lighter. The program has been running for 50 years, organized by the forest branch of Alberta’s Sustainable Resource Development ministry. Crews of 17 to 19-year-old rangers are placed at various posts all over the province for the summer months.

“It’s a youth training program, so it does lead to a lot of people going into careers in the forest industry or into forest management,” Westhaver said. “Our partnership with the Junior Forest Rangers is of mutual benefit. They learn a lot and for us, we often end up hiring a number of people from these crews.”

This past weekend, the Nordegg crew were full participants in the Lake Edith work bee, getting a chance to see some cutting-edge forest management practices in action. During the bee, Jasper residents and Parks staff collaborated to clear brush, fell and buck trees in order to thin the forest surrounding the cabins on the lakefront, and of course, burn some of the slash and wood left over.

“We’re trying to get them the broadest range of resource management experience that we can while they are up here,” Westhaver said. “They’re a great group to work with, very hardworking and enthusiastic.”

The Nordegg crew will spend the next few days working on the gravel pit, but will also make time to participate with the non-native plant eradication crew, learning more about non-native vegetation and the rationale for removing it from the park wherever possible. The group will also have nightly lectures from senior Parks staff, who are discussing their experiences in resource conservation and management with the young crew members.

While this particular crew will soon be returning to Nordegg, another group, this one hailing from Hinton, will arrive later in August, said Westhaver.

In terms of progress for the FireSmart — ForestWise project, Westhaver said that the erratic weather has not stalled the forward momentum of the program. An unexpected wildfire forced the cancellation of a planned burn on Hawk Mountain in the spring, but Westhaver’s bailiwick are the integrated areas where forest and developed lands intersect. A significant amount of burning is typically involved in the more significant clearing portions of the FireSmart work that goes on around the townsite and the outlying commerical areas. Most of the project work is completed in the spring when the ground is frozen and the odds of a small slash fire growing to an uncontrollable size are slim.

The last major clearing effort was undertaken along Highway 93 south of Jasper, where a parcel of land approximately 50 hectares was substantially thinned by machine logging. Work in this area was completed in early spring, and until the snow flies again, FireSmart actions will be largely centred on work bees similar to the one carried out at Lake Edith on Saturday.