Jasper is a model FireSmart community, but that doesn’t mean it’s impenetrable. 

There are still things that can be done on the individual, homeowner and neighbourhood levels to ensure the Jasper town site is protected in the case of a wildfire.

In many cases the changes are small and inexpensive, if not free. 

The first step, says Ron Stanko of the fire department, is to have someone from the department come to your home to do a hazard assessment.

“They’ll take some time and offer up some suggestions in regards to where you can make improvements,” he said during a FireSmart presentation at Habitat for the Arts, Jan. 26.

Some of those improvements include moving woodpiles away from buildings and cleaning your gutters of pine needles. You can also reduce risks by using non-flammable roof shingles and reducing the amount of vegetation close to your home.

It’s important to take these measures to ensure both the safety of your own home and your neighbour’s home, said Alan Westhaver, FireSmart project manager and vegetation and fire specialist for Jasper National Park.

That’s because when there’s a wildfire, there are embers falling from the sky like snowflakes during a snowstorm, and those embers are what ignite homes.

“Your home to a fire is just fuel. It’s as cold and simple as that,” said Westhaver.

So if a home has a cedar shake roof, juniper bushes against it, a cedar fence leading up to it, wood chips in the garden and a hemp door mat, all of those things act as fuel for that fire, which will then grow, putting neighbouring homes at risk.

“There’s a chain reaction,” Westhaver said, pointing to Slave Lake, a community that lost 40 per cent of its homes and buildings to a fire last year. 

“They’re still missing half of their school teachers and half of their police force because they don’t have homes.”

Could that happen in Jasper? The answer is most definitely, said Westhaver.

“We are exactly, from a fire perspective, in the wrong place,” he said. “We’re in a broad, heavily forested valley that is abundantly loaded with fuels. So there’s no lack of fuel, there’s no lack of wind, all we’re really missing is an ignition at the wrong time.”

That’s why it’s so important that the whole community get behind the FireSmart program.

“Everybody’s got to be involved, everybody in the community, whether it’s businesses, homeowners, the federal government, the provincial government, the municipalities, we all have our own set of responsibilities.

“Parks Canada is responsible for managing the landscape. So we’ve taken a lot of actions out beyond the edge of the town site. The municipality of Jasper is responsible for public lands and infrastructure within the town site, and thirdly all of us homeowners, we have major responsibilities, too.”

Parks has been conducting prescribed burns, thinning the forests around town, creating strategic control lines and maintaining the fire guard for years, to ensure the town’s safety.

And both Parks and the fire department have spent a great deal of time educating the community about FireSmart practices through presentations, home visits and work bees.

Because of that effort, Jasper is viewed as a model FireSmart community. 

“The folks of Jasper are probably amongst, as a community, some of the most aware people that you could find,” said Westhaver.

“We’re in a really good position and the thing is we want to complete the final charge,” continued Stanko. “We want to sell that last bit to the neighbourhoods and individual homes. 

“We just want to sell the passion.”

Stanko and Westhaver’s presentation last week was the second half of a two-part series, titled Fire and Ice, mirroring the theme of this year’s Jasper in January festival. Mountain guide Peter Amann gave the first presentation, organized by the Jasper Municipal Library, on Jan. 16.