A former senior planner of Jasper National Park is blaming “unresponsive” and “politicized” Parks Canada leadership for last week’s devastating Jasper wildfire.
Peter Scholz, who was hired by Parks Canada in 2008, says the federal agency’s fire prevention staff were so confident in their abilities to control and battle wildfires that they intentionally allowed dead wood to collect inside of Jasper National Park.
According to Scholz, the Parks Canada wildfire chief at the time told him in a January 2008 meeting, “we have become so good at controlling and stopping fires that we just build up dead wood supplies.”
“I did my best to support what I had been told when I was developing land use policy for Jasper National Park,” Scholz said. This included attempts to clear out dead wood and conduct prescribed burns.
“But I found that the manager of land use planning was unresponsive to those concerns and the superintendent himself was unresponsive,” Scholz said.
Scholz said this turned the park into a powder keg.
“There was enormous amounts of dead fall, some dead trees but mainly branches that had fallen off, this becomes very dry timber and it’s very well-aerated because it’s all built up gradually over the years and it’s not compressed in any way,” he said.
“You could light a match and it’s going to practically explode. I know that because I participated in some of those transects and I saw it for myself.”
According to Parks Canada, only eight prescribed burns were conducted in 2023 in only six national parks. In 2015, Parks Canada set its own record for prescribed burns, conducting 28.
Parks Canada told True North that in the past decade, 15 prescribed fires were completed in Jasper National Park. Further, they indicated that extensive mechanical thinning of trees was conducted to reduce the risk of wildfire. The government agency also treated over 500 hectares with harvesting to remove pine beetle impacted trees.
“The Parks Canada staff who develop and execute the Park Management Plan also mostly live in the community of Jasper and have the greatest stake in ensuring the Park is properly managed for the safety of the community and ecological integrity of the Park,” the agency told True North.
Scholz estimated that by last summer, close to 40% of Jasper National Park trees were standing deadwood killed by pine beetle infestation, creating the perfect scenario for a massive wildfire.
In a Linkedin post, Scholz pinned the blame of the wildfire directly on Parks Canada and Jasper National Park superintendents.
“If Jasper Town burns, I blame the bureaucrats of Parks Canada, especially all the Jasper National Park Superintendents since 2005. This is on you,” he wrote. “Not doing your job because of ecoactivists, who now will blame climate change rather than take responsibility for their own willful ignorance regarding proper forest management.”
Parks Canada staff were unwilling to tackle the “strong political effort” from certain local environmental groups and activists against cutting down dead trees, Scholz said.
“There is a very strong opposition to cutting trees or any kind of burning. A lot of those people (liken) cutting a tree to some kind of murder – they are that emotional about it, and Parks Canada were afraid to tackle them for whatever reason and didn’t push forward appropriate policy,” he said.
“The level of ignorance in that community about proper forest management is rather extraordinary,”
Scholz resigned from his position as senior planner of Jasper National Park after just five months because he felt that he couldn’t make a positive difference and felt his “time would be wasted.”
According to local media reports, the total area of Jasper burned or partially burned is over 360 square kilometres.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that 358 of the 1,100 structures in Jasper had been destroyed but critical infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and water treatment centres were not damaged.
The historic 96-year-old St. Mary & St. George Anglican Church was completely destroyed by the Jasper wildfire.
The evacuation order is still in effect and a timeline for when Jasper residents can return to the town is not yet released.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Upon receiving comment from Parks Canada, True North updated this article on August 7.
