Wildfires near Jasper force residents and tourists to leave

As wildfires continue to spread across Canada, many people have been forced to flee from Jasper, Alberta.

Tyler Kerr, who is originally from Regina, lives and works in the Jasper area.

“It was very smoky, like red smoky, and like ashes falling down from the sky,” described Kerr.

He said traffic was gridlocked after the evacuation order.

“Two of the three ways to get out of town were affected by the fire, so we have to go through Valemount,” said Kerr.

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He said he was stuck in Valemount for a short period.

“The RCMP and stuff were asking each car where we were going… After we got pretty much outside of Valemount,” said Kerr.

“I just drove through all the way to Canmore, and it was a 16-hour drive. Then I stayed the night in Canmore, then I woke up and I (drove) to Regina.”

David Lee and his wife are from the Regina area. They had booked a five-day camping trip in the Jasper area, but the wildfire ended those plans quickly.

“We actually stayed there about five hours,” said Lee.

“We’d pretty much just arrived, and then we had to leave. So we just got kinda set up and went into the campsite and then did a bit of touring around. Went for a bike ride, and then we got the message.”

Lee said the evacuation order came in at around 10:30 p.m. on Monday.

“We hurried up and packed everything up. Luckily, we hadn’t had everything unpacked,” said Lee.

“We were lucky enough that it took us a long time to actually get out of the campsite so by the time we got there, Highway 16 to Edmonton had opened up, and so we headed east to Edmonton.”

Lee said it took about five hours for them to get out of the camping area before driving another hour and a half to Hinton, where they stayed the night.

“It was quite backed up trying to get out of the campsite,” Lee said.

“We’d drive the length of a camper or two and then stop and shut off the vehicle to try and save gas, and then drive another length of a camper or two and stop… Once we got actually on the highway, it wasn’t that bad at all.”

“You could kinda see some smoke above the mountain,” Lee said.

“The fire was on both sides of us when we were driving out of Jasper to Hinton.”

He said the evacuation seemed to go smoothly.

“I think they did a pretty good job of getting us all out,” Lee said.

“Nobody got upset, and everybody was calm.”