Parks Canada firefighting coordination decisions 'need to be made a lot quicker': fire services contractor

A private firefighting service provider says crews contracted to work to protect buildings in and around the town of Jasper during July's wildfire emergency were denied entry to the national park for most of a day.

Kris Liivam, the president of Arctic Fire Safety Services, says unclear communication from emergency managers hampered efforts by his crews, who thought they had written permission to enter the national park on July 25, the day after a powerful wildfire destroyed a third of the townsite but with the fire risk still high despite heavy rain.

At the time, a small Arctic Fire Safety Services crew was already in Jasper, under contract to provincial Alberta Wildfire, working to protect the town. Meanwhile, in Hinton, more of Liivan's team was trying to enter the park -- more than a dozen trucks and about 50 firefighters who had been hired to protect specific properties including Marmot Basin, the Jasper Sky Tram and several hotels.

"We thought we had everything in place, for permission to go in," Liivan told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday. "Once we got to the first RCMP stop, we were denied entry and we had to turn around and head back to Hinton."

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Liivam recently voiced his frustrations to a parliamentary committee looking into the Jasper wildfire, telling it his crews "encountered numerous examples of Parks Canada fire management actively obstructing our activities and not providing us with relevant information on the fire."

A Parks Canada spokesperson says Liivam's company didn't go through proper channels.

"At the height of the fire, Arctic Fire provided two trucks with a very small crew, and without the various coordinators having been notified. Soon afterwards, and following advice from Alberta, the unified command centre released them. ..." Parks Canada told CTV News Edmonton in a statement on Tuesday.

"Self-deployment, whether by volunteers or individuals offering their services, is not an accepted practice, as it can lead to a whole host of safety issues, putting many individuals at risk, while causing distraction and confusion at a time that is already very complex to manage.

"However, after clarifying what they were actually doing there, they were eventually allowed in with specific instructions, and helped to fight the fire, which could have had far worse consequences without this swift and effective handling."

Liivam says such decisions "need to be made a lot quicker," however.

"In some cases, these decisions were being held on people's desks for a few days before the decision was actually made to make major mobilizations, and when you have a fire approaching a community, you don't have that type of time," Liivam told CTV News Edmonton.

"You just need to trust your instincts to do what's right, to mobilize. Typically with a large fire event, fire services would go heavy first and then downscale afterwards, so if you need 100 fire trucks, or you think you need 100 fire trucks, get them on the road, then once they get there, if you find that you have too many, go scale back afterwards. It's better to have too much than not enough."