premier danielle smith sobbed as she tried to describe jasper’s beauty and the devastation of that magical mountain town.
the surprise wasn’t so much that she choked up — who wouldn’t? — but how long her struggle to speak went on.
a premier who talked her way into office was virtually wordless for minutes. her ministers and others at the news conference began to look uneasy and even concerned for her.
some say this was all an act. that’s ridiculous.
what i saw was not political acting but the pain of a leader who knows she’s utterly powerless.
the jasper fire raged at that moment, unstoppable. the leader of a $70-billion government with beefed up firefighting could not do anything to defeat this monster.
as one federal official said, there are “no tools in the tool box” to stop a blaze with flames rising 100 metres above the burning treetops.
the hellfire of it is, this is no longer a rare event. the same thing happened (but worse) in fort mcmurray in 2016, waterton lakes national park in 2017, slave lake 2011.
the public snapped to attention because the fires did the unthinkable by ravaging towns, cities and managed areas where we imagine ourselves to be safe from natural disasters.
today, banff national park, the townsite, and even canmore are also at extreme risk, according to cliff white, a retired environmental scientist with the park.
he told postmedia’s bill kaufmann
that vast “circles of protection” must be carved out of the forest around vulnerable centres.