Alberta probing why Jasper residents were initially told wildfire would reach town in 5 hours

Alberta is looking into how potentially frightening messaging about the Jasper wildfire was sent to residents during an evacuation alert on Monday.

The original Alberta Emergency Alert – sent at 10:30 p.m. – said a wildfire was five hours away from reaching town. An updated alert sent 45 minutes later said residents had five hours to evacuate.

That initial information and the update came from the local municipality and the incident command team in the Jasper area, Alberta Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services Mike Ellis explained Tuesday.

“They would have made that decision… based upon the information that they had at the time,” Ellis said. “As new information came in, they corrected it.

“We’re going to have to inquire as to what is the data that the municipality used in order to make that decision.”

READ MORE: Wildfire evacuation for Jasper National Park ‘progressing well,’ officials say

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says it’s a new process to allow municipalities to directly access the emergency alert system.

“This is the first time that Jasper has done so,” Smith said. “We may need to just have an additional step to make sure when information is going out, it’s being communicated accurately, and so it doesn’t cause that kind of panic.

“Nobody wants to be in a state of panic at 11 p.m. not knowing where they’re going to go.”

Smith says she was “frightened and stressed” when she saw the original messaging. The Alberta premier contacted Minister Ellis, her chief of staff, deputy minister and “anyone I could reach” at that time.

“I didn’t want to go to sleep worried that Jasper might be in fire at 4 a.m.,” the premier said. “It took a lot of work to realize that what they intended was to say that it (would take) five hours to evacuate.

“We did some modelling and shared some information with them and it’s close, make no mistake, there is certainly a fire threat on both sides of the city. In worst case scenario, they’re going to be in real trouble in a few days. But we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

An estimated 10,000 residents and workers, and an additional 15,000 visitors, were forced to evacuate Jasper Monday night as multiple fires threaten the national park and town.