Wildfire Forced Jasper National Park Residents to Flee Their Homes

One of Canada’s most popular national parks has been evacuated due to encroaching wildfires.

On Monday, July 22, the Canadian government ordered 4,700 residents living in Jasper National Park to flee, as flames from the Semo Complex Fire, roared into the area. Jasper National Park is located in western Alberta, along the province’s border with British Columbia, and the reserve encompasses large swaths of the Canadian Rockies.

According to multiple reports, the order to flee caught residents by surprise—most live in the town of Jasper, which is located inside the park. The blaze cut off a number of escape routes in Alberta, forcing evacuees to flee to the west into neighboring British Columbia.

The order came after multiple conflagrations and thick smoke spread across the region from the mega-fire, which is a union of several smaller blazes that have burned a total of 237,221 acres in Alberta and British Columbia. Currently, Canadian firefighting officials consider the Semo Complex Fire to be “out of control.” There are more than 160 wildfires raging in Alberta as of Monday.

“One wildfire is approximately 12 kilometers (seven-and-a-half miles) south of Jasper on both sides of the river and wind may exacerbate the situation,” Mike Ellis, Alberta’s minister of public safety and emergency services, said during a news conference on July 23.

On Monday, escaping tourists and locals posted messages to social media that had tones of both confusion and frustration. Escape routes were narrowed to single lanes in places and traffic slowed to a crawl amid the chaos.

“Crawling out of town. It’s been smoky all day ash started appearing 9p,” Jack Kearney, a videographer from New York, posted on X. “In a lodge full of tourists we didn’t get a heads up from staff. Most of us weren’t sure what to do.”

Carolyn Campbell, the president of the local Edmonton Community College, wrote on X that after nearly three hours of driving, she’d crossed just four miles due to traffic jams. “We heard mobile gas stations are being set up, we’re ok but we know friends are almost out of gas, and folks are sharing same.” she wrote.

Stephanie Goetz, an Ontario resident, was on vacation in the national park when she awoke to a notification on her phone. “It was absolutely shocking. We didn’t realize how close it was to Jasper,” she told the CBC. “When we were stopped, there was tons of cars behind us. And really realizing how close those cars had been to that fire … There’s a much larger fire south of us. I can’t imagine how that’s going to impact Jasper.”

Alberta residents are no strangers to wildfire, and over the years the province has seen multiple mega-fires rage across its borders. In 2016 a raging fire forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta—88,000 people had to flee oncoming flames, the largest evacuation in Alberta’s history. The fire eventually burned more than 2,000 homes and buildings.

In recent years wildfire has had dramatic impacts across Canada. After smoke from the worst fire season in Canadian history poured into the Eastern United States in 2023, one government forecast warned that this current year could see even more wildfire activity.