“You could see it deteriorating, like ash falling”
Turner and his friends initially complied with evacuation orders to head west through the dark mountains into B.C.
They drove for more than three hours west towards Valemount, B.C., a town of just 1,000 about 120 kilometres away. He estimates the group got only about 10 kilometres down the road before seeing other vehicles in the bumper-to-bumper traffic turn around.
His group decided to do the same, going back through the Jasper townsite to Hinton, about 79 kilometres east, where they slept in the Canadian Tire parking lot after arriving around 4 a.m. Tuesday.
“You could see it deteriorating, like ash falling.”
Asked what the feeling was when the alerts came through, Turner said it was “definitely panic.”
“In the staff area, there were congregations of people — people (had) been crying.”
The long lines of packed vehicles trying to flee in the swirling ash and darkness, he said, was “crazy.”
“Like, if the fire was coming, I don’t think many people were getting out.”
Turner and his friends on Tuesday afternoon planned to head south to Banff from Hinton where they would stay with friends until they were allowed to head back to Jasper.
Jasper and the park’s main east-west artery, Highway 16, is vulnerable as fires threatening from the northeast cut off highway access east to Edmonton. Another fire from the south forced the closure of the north-south Icefields Parkway. That left B.C. as the obvious route out of town.
But Alberta fire officials on Tuesday morning acknowledged that B.C. has its hands full with its own wildfires and that evacuation reception centres for Jasper park evacuees were being set up in Grande Prairie to the north of Jasper and Calgary to the south.
One of the threatening Jasper wildfires on Tuesday morning was about 12 kilometres south of the town, with fears the wind would fan the flames.
Evacuee Joey Quinn and his family might have had some of the worst luck of all.
On a family trip with his partner and child, Quinn was staying in Hinton at the Crestwood Hotel but had driven into Jasper to try to see some of the park’s wildlife. But by 8 p.m. Monday, the road back to Hinton was closed, forcing the family to take a very long drive.
They headed west toward Valemount and then south to Kamloops before backtracking west to Banff and then Calgary. With all their luggage still in Hinton, he continued back north until they were at their original destination, with more than 1,000 kilometres added to their odometer and 15 hours of driving.
What started as a day trip to the national park turned into a 15-hour marathon, and a much more thorough tour of the park.
The municipality of Jasper and Jasper National Park said in an updated emergency alert Tuesday morning the evacuation from the townsite and the park is “progressing well” and people should continue to follow directives as the majority of traffic is being directed west on Highway 16.
“Only when roadside fire conditions permit, small groups of escorted vehicles will be directed east on Highway 16,” the town and park officials said in the alert.
— with files from The Canadian Press