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‘A moving monster’: How did the Jasper fire get so bad, so fast?

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The fast-moving Jasper, Alta., wildfire was fuelled by a web of extreme conditions that converged into what experts described as a monstrous fire, serving as a disastrous example of what’s become increasingly common across Canada’s boreal forest.

What has happened in Jasper National Park is a “microcosm of what we’re seeing across Western Canada,” said wildfire risk expert and former Parks Canada wildland firefighter Mathieu Bourbonnais.

More than 20,000 people in and around the Rocky Mountain townsite were ordered to evacuate last Monday. By Wednesday night, fires had reached Jasper, with flames and smoke so intense it forced first responders to briefly retreat. About 30 per cent of the townsite has been destroyed.

Questions and accusations have followed, including from critics who argue Parks Canada and other government agencies did not do enough to protect Jasper.

The reality, says wildfire expert Chris Stockdale, is that the fire eludes simple explanations.

“I think the compelling story is that it’s complex,” said Stockdale, a wildfire risk management expert at Canada’s Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton.

Here is how wildfire experts described the blaze, how some well-publicized critiques oversimplify the problem, and how Canada’s forest-managing and firefighting agencies may better prepare.

What were some of the major drivers of the Jasper wildfire?

Wildfire expert Mike Flannigan says the major drivers of the fire were a confluence of several extreme conditions. Drought in Western Canada combined with a roughly three-week stretch of hot temperatures to dry out the vegetation in the forest.

Lightning strikes on Monday night are thought to have lit the sparks that combined with strong winds to fan the flames across a dried-out landscape primed for a major fire, said Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University.

The wildfires, which Flannigan said “love to run up and down river valleys,” started to the northeast and south of the Jasper townsite, itself located in a high-risk area at the confluence of three river valleys. Within 48 hours, fire was destroying homes and other buildings.

“It’s like a nightmare coming towards you,” said Flannigan.

Officials say flames licked the sky as high as 100 metres above the forest’s canopy, catapulting scorched pine cones and other embers well ahead of the fire, accelerating its pace toward the townsite.

Overhead, a hellish storm formed, entirely of the fire’s making. The fire-induced thunderstorm, called a pyrocumulonimbus storm, can generate lightning strikes and downdrafts, further igniting and fuelling the fires.

“It’s basically a moving monster,” Stockdale said.

The extreme conditions underlying the wildfire are “consistent with what we expect with climate change,” Flannigan said.

Lightning strikes are expected to become more frequent as the planet warms. A warmer atmosphere, meanwhile, can absorb more moisture, helping to further dry out the vegetation that fuels the fire.

“A warmer world means more fire,” he said.

What about the mountain pine beetle infestations?

Parks Canada has faced questions about whether it properly managed the swaths of dead forest that had been infested in recent years by mountain pine beetle, a wood-boring insect.

The pine beetle infestation, which peaked in 2019 before a major cold snap helped wipe out most of the population, has left behind dead pines across millions of hectares in Western Canada, including Jasper.

Those dead pine trees helped fuel the Jasper fire, but Stockdale, Bourbonnais and Flannigan all agreed it was likely not a major driver in comparison to the extreme fire conditions, such as drought and prolonged high temperatures.

“The pine beetle isn’t what made that fire so uncontrollable. It made it even more uncontrollable, but it’s not like pine needle put it over the threshold where it suddenly became an unmanageable fire,” said Stockdale.

Pine beetle has infested roughly 21 million hectares of Canada’s forests, Stockdale said. Removing all the beetle-infested wood from a fire-safe radius around each nearby Canadian town would be a monumental task.

“It oversimplifies the problem,” he said.

“When you look at an individual community, it’s easy to say, ‘if they’d only done this, if they’d only done that, if someone had done this, this wouldn’t happened.’ Sure, but it’s not the only community, there’s hundreds of them. And there’s finite resources.”

Some commentators have also elevated the infestation to explain the fire’s intensity, while simultaneously downplaying the role of climate change.

That argument overlooks that the infestation itself has been propelled by a warming planet, Bourbonnais said. Fewer cold snaps help the pine beetles grow their populations, while warmer conditions have also helped them expand into new areas, with Jasper residing on the edge of their historic and newly expanded range.

“Its life cycle is really closely tied to climate,” said Bourbonnais, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus and co-director of the university’s Centre for Wildfire Coexistence.

Are Canada’s wildfire-fighting agencies doing enough prescribed burns?

Wildfires are a natural part of the boreal ecosystem, helping regenerate the forest in decades-long cycles. Logs and leaves are turned into mineral-rich ash that gets recycled into the soil on the forest floor, which is better exposed to sunlight that can stimulate new growth from seeds and roots.

Indigenous peoples, who were forcibly driven out of what’s now known as Jasper in the early 20th century, had a long history of prescribed burns, which also helps reduce the risk of an out-of-control blaze.

But for many decades, provincial and federal agencies have suppressed fires across Canada’s forests. In Jasper, landscapes once featuring grasslands and meadows with healthy elk and bison populations have been overtaken by stands of dense pine trees more susceptible to fire.

“So, you have these even-aged homogeneous landscapes out there of single species. Then you get a fire into that under the right conditions and there’s really nothing to stop it naturally,” said Bourbonnais.

Parks Canada eventually reintroduced prescribed burns starting in the 1980s, expanding it to Jasper in 1996, but the scale and frequency of those burns have not made up for years of suppression, a 2022 federal report said.

Despite the shortcomings, Parks Canada has become one of the most active agencies in Canada for prescribed burns, said Bourbonnais.

Yet, taken as a whole, agencies across the country burn less than one per cent of land in prescribed fires compared to their counterparts in the United States, despite overseeing more forest, he said.

“We have to start turning that tide I think really, really soon,” said Bourbonnais, who’s an ex-member of Alberta’s disbanded Wildfire Rappel Program.

Is it time for a centralized emergency-management agency?

Wildfire experts say more resources need to be spent on fire mitigation and prevention measures across Canada, including for prescribed burns.

Budgets for wildfire fighting have paled in comparison to the resources spent on preventing mega-fires that have consumed the country’s forests in recent years, Bourbonnais said.

Governments should also craft better legislation around how forests are harvested by the logging industry, setting out how those areas get replanted to promote more fire-resilient landscapes, he said.

Flannigan, meanwhile, has advocated for the federal government to establish a national agency comparable to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the United States. He envisions the agency would be the point of command during disasters, including hurricanes and floods, and staffed with well-trained, quick deploy wildland firefighters.

“Whether it’s reactionary or proactive, this is something we should consider. Not having a FEMA-type agency, it just seems weird that we don’t,” he said.

Asked recently about the possibility of establishing such an agency, Canada’s Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan said it was being explored. But he praised the preparedness in Jasper and said all requests for more wildfire support had been approved.

More broadly, Bourbonnais said the fires should also serve as a chance to rethink a relationship with the landscape that has helped foster a fire-primed forest and fire-prone communities.

“Focusing in on one thing, like, ‘what does this community have to do?’ Or, ‘what did they do wrong?’ That’s not the point. This is going to continue happening unless we change something,” he said.

“We do have a lot of the tools to start changing the outcome. We’re just not applying them at the scale we need.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2024.

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Juan Soto’s 3-run homer in 10th sends Yankees past Guardians 5-2 and into World Series for 41st time

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CLEVELAND (AP) — Juan Soto’s arrival last winter was supposed to be that move that pushed the New York Yankees back to the top.

They’re one step away.

Soto hit a three-run homer with two outs in the 10th inning and the Yankees advanced to their 41st World Series — and first in 15 years — by beating the Cleveland Guardians 5-2 in Game 5 of the AL Championship Series on Saturday night.

Baseball’s biggest brand is going back to October’s main stage.

Soto, who was acquired in a seven-player trade from San Diego in December, pushed the Bronx Bombers into position with one big swing.

This was why he came, for this moment and for so many more.

“We’re right where we belong,” said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, who pulled off the deal for Soto.

The Yankees will try to win their 28th title against either the New York Mets or Los Angeles Dodgers. Game 6 of the NL Championship Series is on Sunday at Dodger Stadium.

In the third consecutive tight game in three nights at Progressive Field, Austin Wells walked with one out in the 10th and Alex Verdugo followed with a grounder to Guardians second baseman Andrés Giménez, whose soft toss to the bag was dropped by rookie shortstop Brayan Rocchio for an error.

Hunter Gaddis struck out Gleyber Torres and had Soto in a 1-2 count before New York’s stylish outfielder sent a shot over the wall in center. Soto danced down the first-base line and paused to celebrate with his teammates before circling the bases.

“I was just saying to myself, `You’re all over that guy. You’re all over that guy. He ain’t got anything,’” said Soto, who moved alongside his manager, Aaron Boone, as the only New York players to homer in an extra-inning, series-clinching win.

Luke Weaver got the final three outs with Lane Thomas flying out for the last one, which was caught by Soto.

“We get to play for a world championship,” Boone said. “That’s pretty sweet.”

The 25-year-old Soto is eligible for free agency this winter, and Yankees fans chanted “Re-sign Soto!” during the postgame festivities. He’s expected to get a contract upwards of $600 million, and his heroics in Game 5 may have raised his price.

Giancarlo Stanton hit a two-run homer and was named ALCS MVP as the Yankees took care of the Guardians in five games. It wasn’t easy.

New York won the first two at Yankee Stadium without much fanfare or any major drama. However, it was a different story in Cleveland as all three games at Progressive Field were nail-biters.

The Guardians rallied to win Game 3 on two, two-run homers in their last two at-bats, and the Yankees held on to win Game 4 after blowing a four-run lead.

“This was a rollercoaster and we were able to just keep punching back,” Stanton said. “We know there’s much more work to do and it’s only uphill from here and we got to get it done.”

Cleveland just didn’t have enough and a surprising season under first-year manager Stephen Vogt ended just short of a World Series. The franchise remains without a title since 1948, baseball’s current longest drought.

“There’s only one team that gets to win the last game of the year, and unfortunately it’s not going to be us,” Vogt said. “But we accomplished a lot as a group. We got better. We worked extremely hard. I couldn’t be more proud of this group. We just didn’t get quite as far as we wanted to.”

The Yankees are back in the World Series, back where their fans expect them to be every year.

The club’s 82-80, fourth-place finish in the AL East last season led to some “soul searching as an organization” during the winter, according to Boone, who has been widely criticized but is one of just three managers to take New York to playoffs in six of his first seven seasons.

While the team’s core stayed mostly intact, getting Soto in a blockbuster trade on Dec. 7 — New York sent five players to San Diego for the three-time All-Star — accelerated the team returning to title contender.

“That was a good day,” Boone said with a laugh before the game.

Stanton’s 446-foot rocket into the left-field bleachers tied it at 2 in the sixth and chased Tanner Bibee, who had struck out New York’s dangerous DH in his first two at-bats and held the Yankees scoreless for the first five innings.

It was Stanton’s fourth homer in this series — his third in three days — and his 16th in the postseason, moving him into fourth place on the club’s career list behind Bernie Williams (22), Derek Jeter (20) and Mickey Mantle (18).

Before the game, Boone was asked what makes Stanton so good.

“He can hit it harder than anyone, first of all,” Boone said. “So there’s the physical nature of what he does that’s different than just about everyone in the world.”

But Boone went on to compliment Stanton’s discipline at the plate, “his approach, his process, how he studies guys.”

“There’s something that he does when he gets familiarity with people on top of being very physically gifted,” Boone said.

The Guardians took a 2-0 lead in the fifth off Carlos Rodón on Steven Kwan’s RBI single with two outs. But Cleveland missed a big chance for more, leaving the bases loaded when Lane Thomas grounded out on the first pitch to him from Mark Leiter Jr.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Yankees: LHP Nestor Cortes (elbow strain) had another successful live batting practice session. The reliever remains on track to join the Yankees on their World Series roster. Boone said Cortes would throw again early next week. Cortes went 9-10 with a 3.77 ERA in 30 starts.

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No. 5 Georgia knocks off No. 1 Texas 30-15, with Etienne running for 3 TDs

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Trevor Etienne ran for three touchdowns, the first two set up by cornerback Daylen Everette’s takeaways, and fifth-ranked Georgia went on to beat Quinn Ewers and No. 1 Texas 30-15 on Saturday night.

Etienne’s last score was a 1-yard plunge on fourth down with 12:04 left. That came right after an ugly sequence when Texas fans littered the field with water bottles and other trash after referees called a pass-interference penalty that initially wiped out an interception and long return, before the flag was picked up and set up a Longhorns TD.

“These players bring the best out of me,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “They tried to rob us with calls in this place. And these guys are so resilient.”

Georgia (6-1, 4-1 Southeastern Conference), which began the season at No. 1, has won three in a row since a 41-34 loss at then-No. 4 Alabama, when the Bulldogs overcame a 28-0 deficit and went ahead late during an exchange of long TD passes.

The Bulldogs never trailed in their first trip to Austin since 1958 to take on the SEC newcomer that had gotten through the first half of its schedule pretty much unscathed.

“Nobody gave us a chance. Everybody doubted us,” Smart said, then making a reference to ESPN’s “College GameDay” pregame show that broadcast from the Austin campus earlier in the day. “Did you watch the show this morning? I didn’t because I was in meetings, but I got 8,000 texts about it.”

Texas (6-1, 2-1) won at reigning national champion Michigan in Week 2 and had been behind for less than four minutes all season before facing the the back-to-back national champ before the Wolverines.

The 15-point loss was the most lopsided for a No. 1 team at home since Notre Dame’s 31-16 win at Pittsburgh in 1982, according to Sportradar, when Dan Marino was the Panthers quarterback.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t play our best football tonight, but we were still competitive. Hopefully, we get another crack at them,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. ‘They’ve they’ve been the standard in college football now for about five, six, seven years and we played them really well in the second half.”

Georgia quarterback Carson Beck improved to 19-2 as a starter, including a 7-2 mark against ranked teams. He was 23 of 41 for 175 yards and finished with three interceptions, though Texas didn’t get anything out of the two he threw in the first quarter. The Longhorns had only 38 yards total when trailing 23-0 at halftime.

Jahdae Barron’s pick and 36-yard return to the Georgia 9 late in the third quarter came after contact with Arian Smith that drew a pass interference penalty. Sarkisian was irate at officials, then went to the far corner of the field where students sit signaling for them to quit throwing things.

As the debris was being picked up, officials were discussing the play and picked up the flag. Two plays later, Ewers threw a 17-yard touchdown to Jaydon Blue to get the Longhorns to 23-15.

Ewers completed 25 of 43 passes for 211 yards.

Everette’s blindside sack late in the first quarter jarred loose the ball from Ewers, and the defender recovered at the Texas 13 after several of his teammates had tried to pick up the fumble. That led to Etienne’s 2-yard TD for a 7-0 lead.

A 15-yard TD run by Etienne, with a late lunge into the end zone, made it 17-0 after Everette stepped in front of a receiver for an interception at the Texas 34.

“We all always say that takeaways come in bunches,” Everette said. “We practice taking small details seriously.”

Peyton Woodring kicked three field goals before halftime for Georgia, the last a 44-yarder as time expired after freshman Arch Manning, in for a second series, fumbled while being sacked.

The takeaway

Georgia: Smart got his 100th career win in 117 games over nine seasons. … The defense set the tone for the Dawgs, including seven sacks and forcing four turnovers that Georgia turned into 17 points.

Texas: This was the Longhorns’ biggest test so far in the SEC, and it turned into a jarring reminder of how difficult things can be in their new league. Texas has lost its last five home games against top-five opponents, since a win over No. 3 Nebraska in 1999 when they were in the Big 12 together.

Poll implications

Texas will fall out of the No. 1 spot, it is just a matter of how far. Oregon (6-0) is likely to take over at the top from No. 2, but Georgia could possibly replace the Ducks there. No. 3 Penn State and No. 4 Ohio State, whose only loss was at Oregon, were both off this weekend.

Up next

Georgia: Faces Florida on Nov. 2 in their annual game in Jacksonville, Florida.

Texas: At Vanderbilt on Saturday.

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Indonesia swears in Prabowo Subianto as the country’s eighth president

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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Prabowo Subianto was inaugurated Sunday as the eighth president of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, completing his journey from an ex-general accused of rights abuses during the dark days of Indonesia’s military dictatorship to the presidential palace.

The former defense minister, who turned 73 on Thursday, was cheered through the streets by thousands of waving supporters after taking his oath on the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in front of lawmakers and foreign dignitaries. Banners and billboards to welcome the new president filled the streets of the capital, Jakarta, where tens of thousands gathered for festivities including speeches and musical performances along the city’s major throughfare.

Subianto was a longtime rival of the immensely popular President Joko Widodo, who ran against him for the presidency twice and refused to accept his defeat on both occasions, in 2014 and 2019.

But Widodo appointed Subianto as defense chief after his reelection, paving the way for an alliance despite their rival political parties. During the campaign, Subianto ran as the popular outgoing president’s heir, vowing to continue signature policies like the construction of a multibillion-dollar new capital city and limits on exporting raw materials intended to boost domestic industry.

Backed by Widodo, Subianto swept to a landslide victory in February’s direct presidential election on promises of policy continuity.

Subianto was sworn in with his new vice president, 37-year-old Surakarta ex-Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka. He chose Raka, who is Widodo’s son, as his running mate, with Widodo favoring Subianto over the candidate of his own former party. The former rivals became tacit allies, even though Indonesian presidents don’t typically endorse candidates.

But how he’ll govern the biggest economy in Southeast Asia — where nearly 90% of Indonesia’s 282 million people are Muslims — remains uncertain after a campaign in which he made few concrete promises besides continuity with the popular former president.

Subianto, who comes from one of the country’s wealthiest families, is a sharp contrast to Widodo, the first Indonesian president to emerge from outside the political and military elite who came from a humble background and as president often mingled with working-class crowds.

Subianto was a special forces commander until he was expelled by the army in 1998 over accusations that he played a role in the kidnappings and torture of activists and other abuses. He never faced trial and went into self-imposed exile in Jordan in 1998, although several of his underlings were tried and convicted.

Jordanian King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein was expected to attend Sunday’s ceremony, but canceled at the last minute because of escalating Middle East tensions, instead deciding to send Foreign Affairs Minister Nancy Namrouqa as his special envoy. Subianto and Abdullah met in person in June for talks in Amman on humanitarian assistance to people affected by the war in Gaza.

Subianto, who has never held elective office, will lead a massive, diverse archipelago nation whose economy has boomed amid strong global demand for its natural resources. But he’ll have to contend with global economic distress and regional tensions in Asia, where territorial conflicts and the United States-China rivalry loom large.

Leaders and senior officials from more than 30 countries flew in to attend the ceremony, including Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and leaders of Southeast Asia countries. U.S. President Joe Biden sent Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Adm. Samuel Paparo, the U.S. Commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, was also among the American delegation.

Army troops and police, along with armored vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances, were deployed across the capital, and major roads were closed to secure the swearing-in.

The election outcome capped a long comeback for Subianto, who was banned for years from traveling to the United States and Australia.

He has vowed to continue Widodo’s modernization efforts, which have boosted Indonesia’s economic growth by building infrastructure and leveraging the country’s abundant resources. A signature policy required nickel, a major Indonesian export and a key component of electric car batteries, to be processed in local factories rather than exported raw.

He has also promised to push through Widodo’s most ambitious and controversial project: the construction of a new capital on Borneo, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) away from congested Jakarta.

Before February’s presidential election, he also promised to provide free school lunches and milk to 78.5 million students at more than 400,000 schools across the country, aiming to reduce malnutrition and stunted growth among children.

Indonesia is a bastion of democracy in Southeast Asia, a diverse and economically bustling region of authoritarian governments, police states and nascent democracies. After decades of dictatorship under President Suharto, the country was convulsed by political, ethnic and religious unrest in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, it has consolidated its democratic transition as the world’s third-largest democracy, and is home to a rapidly expanding middle class.

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Associated Press journalists Edna Tarigan and Andi Jatmiko contributed to this report.



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