‘I’ve actually gone numb … We will overcome this,’ said Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce executive director Pattie Pavlov
Jasper resident and grocery store manager Will Baart had finally laid his head on the pillow in a hotel in the B.C. village of McBride early Tuesday night, after being evacuated from his own community hours before.
A little while later, the phone rang.
Come back, officials with Parks Canada asked.
The manager of TGP, Your Jasper Grocer was asked to return to help provide food to a growing crew of firefighters and emergency personnel toiling mightily to save the mountain town as fires raged in the area.
By Wednesday, less than 30 hours after he had arrived back in Jasper to help make food available for the workers — he was joined by one staff member — the situation outside the town grew ominous as dark smoke crawled closer.
Then, he got another message.
It’s time to leave — and they did around 4 p.m., along with first responders and other workers who were told to exit Jasper as a fire raced toward the community.
“By the time we got to our residences, which are only two blocks down the road . . . RCMP were going through town on the loudspeakers with their sirens on, ‘Evacuate immediately,’ ” he recalled Thursday morning.
“We fled the community to the east, and as we were halfway to Hinton, I kept looking in the mirror, looking in the mirror. And you can tell that something was going down because the smoke was billowing much more — and it was much darker.”
By Thursday morning, Baart woke up after a long evening of travel to Edmonton, staying in a hotel with his wife, Mindy Gromek, and their two Yorkshire terrier dogs, Oliver and Ellie.
The couple were viewing photos and social media images of the fire that tore through the iconic townsite that previous night, looking for signs.
Initially, he suspected both the business and his home were gone.
A photo that went viral on social media showed the nearby Maligne Lodge covered in flames, about 150 metres from his own home in Jasper, a community he’s lived in for 25 years.
Later in the morning, he learned that an emergency worker was back at the grocery store.
It was still standing.
“My house is (probably) gone, but I have work to go back to, so that’s all I need,” he said.
“Our business is there. It’s standing and untouched, so it’s pretty incredible.”
Across the community of about 5,000 residents, store and shop owners and employees were seeking information and trying to determine the fate of their homes and livelihoods in Jasper National Park.
For many, the answers aren’t yet clear.
What is known is the wildfire, fuelled by dry conditions, scorching temperatures and shifting winds, led to the initial evacuation of the community on Monday night and Tuesday morning.
An estimated 25,000 people were in the national park at the time, including visitors. It’s reported everyone got out safely.
The wildfire entered the town Wednesday evening, with Alberta’s premier describing it as a “wall of flames,” confronting Jasper.
Parks Canada officials were not commenting on the specific level of destruction, but Premier Danielle Smith estimated 30 to 50 per cent structural damage in the town, which will require a significant rebuild and displacement.
For Karyn Decore, who co-owns the Maligne Lodge, the Wicked Cup coffee shop, along with the Tonquin Inn in Jasper, the news was shocking.
A photo posted on social media showed the Maligne Lodge fully engulfed in flames on Wednesday night. Friends began sending her texts while she was on vacation.
The hotel, then called the Diamond Motel, was bought by her father in the 1960s.
Decore remembers working in the business when she was 12, cleaning up rooms and later staffing the front counter when she turned 16. She co-owns the business today with her sister, Nicole Arquero.
Their connection to the community runs deep.
“Our family has been in Jasper since 1961, and so on one hand it was horrifying to see that . . . I kept looking at this photo. And the second thing that came to mind was the memories that we’ve had in Jasper,” she said in an interview Thursday.
“It was devastating.”
Decore, who lives in Edmonton and is the CEO of Decore Hotels, said her company employs about 100 workers in Jasper. They all got out safely earlier this week.
She’s not sure yet about the fate of the Tonquin Inn but says she intends to rebuild Maligne Lodge.
“It is a national treasure . . . It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world,” Decore said.
“Jasper really does have a very strong and committed community. And I know that they’re going to come together to help build back the park.
“But we also are going to desperately need the support of both the provincial and the federal levels of governments.”
Officials with the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge confirmed Thursday evening that the hotel suffered some fire damage, but most of its structures remain intact, including its main lodge.
“We are deeply relieved that much of the property was spared and we will reopen in the future,” said a company statement.
Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce executive director Pattie Pavlov, who has lived in the town for 33 years, said she doesn’t know when business operators will be able to return and start to rebuild, as the entire community is processing the “nightmare” that’s happened this week.
“I’ve actually gone numb,” Pavlov said from Nakusp, B.C.
“We will overcome this.”
Baart, whose store employs 48 people in Jasper, was still uncertain about the fate of his home by Thursday afternoon.
However, the 43-year-old manager said he has hope knowing the store is still standing, and his staff will have an important job to do once residents are finally able to get back home.
“We know that we’re going to be in the fight to rebuild this community,” he said.
“At least now, we have that foothold. We know our place in this rebuild -— and that’s going to be feeding the community.”
Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.