Jasper, “Crown Jewel” of the Canadian Park System, Catches Fire

Aug 5, 2024

An intense wildfire recently destroyed part of the town of Jasper, Alberta, and burned a large section of Jasper National Park in Western Canada. Jasper is known as one of the most beautiful wilderness parks in all of North America and was called a “crown jewel of the Canadian parks system.”

Wildfires in forested areas, often started by lightning strikes, are part of the natural environment. But climate change, which is causing higher temperatures, drier conditions in some forests and more prolonged droughts, has increased the number and destructiveness of large wildfires.

Despite the efforts of hundreds of fire fighters, the wildfire in Jasper was out of control and was worsened by a fire-generated storm, scientifically called a pyrocumulonimbus or a pyroCb. A pyroCb is a huge, smoke-filled thunderstorm generated when extreme heat from a wildfire combines with atmospheric conditions ripe for storm formation.

These heat-generated storms don’t produce much rain, but they can create strong winds, tornadoes and lightning, which can start even more fires. The extreme winds from a pyroCb make a wildfire nearly impossible to put out, while also endangering the lives of firefighters. These tornado-like winds were also reported near the Park wildfire in California.

PyroCbs also send huge amounts of smoke very high into the atmosphere, the effects of which are not yet clear. What is clear is that the number of reported pyroCbs has drastically increased in the last decade as the earth heats up from climate change.

Under a capitalist system which refuses to address climate change, a warming planet is leading to more homes burned, more people killed and destruction of the natural environment.