JASPER, ALTA. International borders or not, fire crews are at the ready to help where they re needed. Wildfires burned in the western states of the U.S. including Oregon, Washington and California in the summer and through fall. Millions of acres of land were destroyed, towns were levelled, and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. And with Jasper National Park as a member of the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, Jasper specialists were sent to Oregon, U.S.A. in September to help firefighters already there, and were onsite from Sept. 17 to Oct. 2. The Jasper crew included Brett Haug, fire technician, Beau Michaud, task force leader, along with Clayton Praill, Sean Buckle, Adam McNutt, Coulter Schmitz and Christine Brown.
Author of the article: Submitted
Publishing date: Dec 10, 2020 • December 10, 2020 • 1 minute read •
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I was pleased and honoured to read the article by Joanne McQuarrie about our Jasper Parks Canada firefighters in the Jasper Fitzhugh paper on December 9, 2020. Our firefighters returned home in October after helping in the Lions Head fire in Oregon from September 17 to October 2
nd. There were 25 in total – a 20-pack unit crew, four task force leaders, one helicopter manager and a Parks Canada representative. The fire crew patrolled the perimeter of the areas on fire and were given a section of the area to patrol and extinguish hot spots. Hundreds of thousands of people, as well as 500,000 were evacuated at one point.