Jasper officials say 70 per cent of structures saved: ‘I recognize my town’

Despite grim news about 30 per cent of Jasper structures have been lost in a devastating wildfire, a town official says there’s still “truly a community to go back to” after touring the area on Sunday.

According to Christine Nadon, incident commander for the Municipality of Jasper, about 70 per cent of of structures were saved and on entering the town — her second time since the fires hit — she was happy to see so many buildings standing.

“I recognize my town, our fire hall is still there,” she said. “There’s really, truly a community to go back to. The devastation is pretty intense on the west side of town, essentially, but lots of our infrastructure was saved.”

Critical infrastructure remained intact, including schools, the hospital, and water treatment services, but Premier Danielle Smith said on Saturday that staff needed to get inside the hospital to check for damage since there were reports its roof had been on fire.

Media were given the opportunity, alongside officials, to tour the townsite in Jasper National Park on Sunday, bearing witness to the devastation with some foundations all that remained in place of the homes that once stood there, and burned out vehicles.

Only pieces of Jasper Anglican Church, which construction began for in 1928, remained in its place which was across from the community’s hospital and fire hall, both of which survived.

Fire Chief Mathew Conte told Global News he saw his own home burn down during his tactical patrols.

“It was pretty overwhelming,” he said. “We had a lot going on that night and seeing we’re losing our home was very difficult. But we had to put that behind me and kind of focus on the task at hand, couldn’t save what was already lost but we needed to do what we could to prevent