![]() ![]() The right conditions, along with prior logging, would ensure a moderate intensity fire that stayed low in the forested area without burning deep into the ground and destroying roots. ![]() Ideal conditions, she said, included a combination of “weather, fuel and moisture conditions, temperature and the humidity of fuel (trees, grasses).” Ignition of the burns couldn’t happen, said Park, until conditions were right. As well, helicopter crews were on standby in case water needed to be dropped with aerial buckets on problem areas. To manage the burns, Parks Canada fire managers and firefighters (including Banff, Jasper, Wateron and Lake Louise, Yoho, Kootenay and Mount Revelstoke/Glacier) teamed up with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development crews, as well as Town of Banff and Town of Canmore firefighters to ensure the burns remained under control.įire crews were on the ground and on the Trans-Canada Highway to ensure the fires were contained to an area between the highway and the Bow River. Burns will then stimulate the growth of aspen and grasses, providing quality forage for ungulates like elk and moose. The area is one that naturally features aspen and grasslands, she said, so many spruce trees were logged and removed, to be sold if commercially useful for cost-recovery, or cut for firewood in Parks campgrounds. It’s important to maintain fire for ungulates, wolves and grizzlies.” The Carrot Creek area, said Park, is a montane area, “that has some of the highest biodiversity in the area. Both were in close proximity to an area of forest thinning work done at the Canmore Nordic Centre to reduce wildfire hazard.īoth the six- and 49-hectare areas had been selectively logged previously and prepared over the past two weeks for the burn to take place. The Carrot Creek burns, one of six hectares which was ignited on Monday and one of 49 hectares which was ignited Tuesday (May 7), took place at the eastern boundary of Banff National Park (BNP). “It will basically help us mitigate the effects of catastrophic wildfire that comes from inside the park toward the neighbouring communities.” On Monday (May 6), about 40 firefighters from all departments took part in the burns, which completed a four-year project, “to complete a valley-wide fuel break for community protection for the downwind communities of Harvie Heights and Canmore,” said Jane Park, a fire and vegetation specialist with Parks Canada. It was all hands on deck last week as Parks Canada, provincial and municipal firefighters gathered to manage a pair of prescribed burns in the Carrot Creek area of Banff National Park. ![]()
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