Homes flattened by the Jasper Complex wildfire in Alberta are seen from a drone in August, 2024.Luuk Wijk/Parks Canada/Reuters
Sixteen months after wildfires swallowed a third of the buildings in Jasper, Alta., and 33,000 hectares of surrounding forest, the town is a hive of construction activity. Every day, new buildings walls spring seemingly out of nowhere, breathing new life into a once barren landscape.
The concerted efforts of Parks Canada and the municipal government enabled important changes to Jasper’s development regulations that ensure these new buildings are better equipped to resist the kindling of embers.
Based on FireSmart principles, a national program to reduce fire risk and improve community resilience, the updated policy mandates the exclusive use of non-combustible materials in building exteriors. Stone, brick, stucco, metal and fibre cement designed to look like wood are set to replace the cedar cladding previously encouraged by the town’s architectural guidelines. That material was found to have played a role in quickly spreading the fire within the townsite’s boundaries.
Authorities in Jasper have legislated formerly discretionary measures to remove flammable materials from the vicinity of all new structures.Amir Salehi/The Globe and Mail
“Immediately after the fire, we recognized that a number of rules in the land-use policy and what we call the ‘architectural motif,’ which guides what things look like in Jasper, needed to be updated,” says Beth Sanders, director of urban design and standards at the municipality of Jasper.
“Municipalities like Jasper, Banff and Whistler are really wanting to focus on the built form character because that’s part of the tourism draw. So we had to walk a really fine line with the architectural motif.”
On top of requiring the use of fire-rated materials and building components, Jasper authorities legislated formerly discretionary measures to remove flammable materials from the vicinity of all new structures. The updated land-use bylaw now calls for a 1.5-metre buffer between a building and any structure made out of wood – from decks and fences, to woody vegetation that can be ignited by a wildfire’s embers, such as juniper bushes and pine trees.
The main street of Jasper in January after devastating wildfires roared through Jasper National Park last summer.Todd Korol/The Globe and Mail
Although complying with these new policies can come with a hefty price tag, homeowners are keen to abide, say local builders Toby Gifford and Ryan Malenchak, co-founders of Wild Mountain Construction.
“Wood decks aren’t allowed any more, so using a composite that has a class-A fire rating is a huge extra cost,” Mr. Malenchak says. “Before, you could build a deck for like $3,000, but now that can cost $13,000.”
Having lost everything to the fire, many Jasperites know the additional cost is well worth it.
“A lot of our customers are deciding to go a little bit above and beyond as far as fire-rated materials,” Mr. Gifford says. “They want to go that extra mile to not have something like this happen again.”
The updated standards, however, apply only to new construction, raising questions about the risks that remain.
Long-time Jasper resident Sue Cesco says she has noticed little change in the two-thirds of the town that wasn't damaged by the wildfire.Brian Van Tighem/The Globe and Mail
Shortly before the 2024 wildfire, long-time resident Sue Cesco attended a FireSmart workshop hosted by the municipality, where she learned about the steps she could take to mitigate fire risks in her property. “I made changes when I returned home, just in our property,” she says. “Getting a sense that some things shouldn’t be there.”
Sadly, Ms. Cesco has noticed little change in the two-thirds of town that luckily made it through the wildfire unscathed.
“I walked around the community the other day, looking at things, and there were some roofs still with the old cedar combustibles,” she says.
“You hope that people will try to make it a priority to upgrade their homes to be more FireSmart when they have the opportunity to do so.”
According to Ramla Qureshi, an assistant professor of structural engineering at McMaster University who specializes in fire safety and resilience against extreme hazards, an important caveat of FireSmart practices is precisely their discretionary nature.
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While conscientious homeowners will keep flammable materials away from their home and regularly clean their property’s gutters to remove pine cones and dry leaves, not everyone is ready to implement big-ticket upgrades, such as replacing their roof and siding. That leaves a fire hazard latent within a community.
“FireSmart is a brilliant resource,” she says. “But it relies too much on community buy-in.”
Even though small interventions can have a sizable impact, protecting mountain towns from increasingly unpredictable wildfires goes well beyond eliminating combustible building materials and landscaping.
Improving the capacity of buildings to withstand a wildfire through better engineering is also essential, as a warming climate makes wildfires not only more common but also more destructive.
“In Canada, we have so much kindling in the forests that now we’re getting exponentially larger and more uncontrollable fires,” Ms. Qureshi says. “It’s time to start looking at a building code that mandates fire mitigation strategies.”
Jasper's updated land-use bylaw calls for a 1.5-metre buffer between a building and any structure made out of wood.Amir Salehi/The Globe and Mail
Building codes are a provincial responsibility and updating these documents is often a lengthy process that requires solid analyses to support any changes.
“We need research of the fundamentals,” Ms. Qureshi says, noting the scant number of studies focused on wildfire behaviour in urbanized areas. “Because it’s no longer the same vegetative fuels when a wildfire reaches an urbanized area – now you have cars, houses, and they all have different thermal signatures – it’s chaos all of a sudden.”
Some jurisdictions in Alberta are taking steps to mitigate fire risk, including amendments to local regulations that reduce their reliance on discretionary practices.
Earlier this year, Banff town council updated its land-use bylaw to require all new construction to be built using class-A rated materials in roofs and siding. But, as in Jasper, introducing amendments that contravene the mountain town’s character wasn’t an easy task, says Katherine Severson, director of emergency and protective services at the Town of Banff.
Rebuilding Jasper a ‘heavy burden’ for residents one year after the wildfire
“Emergency management and the fire department have worked very closely with our planning department on providing information for homeowners on what materials would be in alignment with the aesthetic of the town,” she says. “But it has required a bit of a shift in thinking on safety being paramount.”
A proposal to enshrine some FireSmart principles in the community standards bylaw is currently in the works. If approved, this regulation would mandate the removal of combustible materials such as dead trees, long grass and debris located within 10 metres of any structure on private property.
“These are standards to make our community as safe as possible,” Ms. Severson says. “Changes to legislation are a pillar of FireSmart.”