A group of private firefighters is accusing Parks Canada of denying them access to help fight the fires and protect buildings in the town of Jasper. President of Arctic Fire Safety Services, Kris Liivam, stated that unclear communication from government officials led to firefighters being denied into the area for crucial hours.
“Once we got to the first RCMP stop, we were denied entry and we had to turn around and head back to Hinton.” said Liivam. Despite eventually being given access to the area, Liivam says that these kinds of decisions need to be made quicker, as a lot more work could have been done faster if they were given fast access.
Parks Canada claimed that the for-profit firefighters showed up unannounced and were not needed. “Self-deployment, whether by volunteers or individuals offering their services, is not an accepted practice,” said Parks Canada. If there are professionals willing and ready to help, especially during a major crisis such as this, you should let them help. These are official professional firefighters. Let them help! It does not matter if they are needed or not, more help is better than no help. And this is the point Liivam tried to get across. “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.” he said.