Tornado researcher says firestorm damage in Jasper unlike anything he's ever seen

Tree can be seen knocked down in a circular pattern in Jasper National Park, where a fire storm may have generated a fire tornado in late July. (Western Engineering Severe Storm Survey Team)

According to a team of tornado researchers, the Jasper National Park wildfire may have spawned a rare fire tornado – or even two.

Aaron Jaffe, a lead surveyor for the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP), is part of a team studying the destruction left by a fire storm in the Wabasso Campground area this summer.

"I didn't even fully know that a fire could produce that much wind damage," he said.

"It was these huge areas over a kilometre wide and several kilometres long at a time of just almost every single tree uprooted and snapped."

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Jaffe and his team recently spent a week surveying the area, around 10 kilometres south of the townsite, where the wildfire grew so intense that updrafts created a pyroculonimbus cloud.

Jaffe said drone, radar, and satellite images of the site will help the team study tree-fall and debris patterns to determine if that storm spawned a rare fire tornado.

While the analysis will take several months, Jaffe said it takes a "very significant" tornado or wind system to leave the devastation seen by the team.

"It's unlike any level of fire-induced wind damage that I've ever seen," Jaffe said.

"We have to look through the data and do some analysis, but it's possible that there were one or several fire tornadoes there."

A stretch of Jasper National Park can be seen with trees ripped up and knocked down by high winds created during a fire storm in late July. Researchers believe a fire tornado may be responsible for the damage. (Western Engineering Severe Storm Survey Team) Fire tornadoes, according to Jaffe, are rare phenomena. If confirmed, this would be the second documented case in Canada.

The first was confirmed by the NTP in Gun Lake, B.C. last August.

In Jasper, Parks Canada officials estimated the winds from the fire storm reached between 150 km/h and 180 km/h - the equivalent to an EF-1 Tornado.

• Firestorm caused winds up to 180 km/h at Wabasso Campground, leaving trail of destruction 

"Based on the level of damage I saw, I would not at all be surprised by wind speeds that were equivalent, if not potentially even higher than that," Jaffe said.

Like regular tornado research, Jaffe and the NTP believe that studying these rare storms could lead to better prevention or preparation for future events as extreme fires become more common in Canada.

"Once we have a better understanding of them, maybe one day we'd be able to predict what kind of fires might produce them," Jaffe said. "Where they might happen, what we might be able to do to help reduce the damage they cause."

A stretch of Jasper National Park can be seen with trees ripped up and knocked down by high winds created during a fire storm in late July. Researchers believe a fire tornado may be responsible for the damage. (Western Engineering Severe Storm Survey Team) The federal conservatives recently criticized Justin Trudeau's Liberal government, saying it did not do enough to limit the Jasper wildfire complex.

• 'A moving monster': How did the Jasper fire get so bad, so fast?

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said almost $7 million has been spent to remove mountain pine beetle infested trees, which have been blamed for helping drive extreme fire behaviour in the park.

Since 2014, Guilbeault said around 1,700 hectares of trees have been removed. However, the conservatives say that's less than 10 per cent of the recommended spending for tree removal.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Evan Kenny and Amanda Anderson