While Jasper residents may have intermittent power, emergency officials are asking those in the national park to conserve electricity to preserve emergency capacity.
The Chetamon Mountain wildfire continues to burn Saturday, with Parks Canada estimating the blaze to be held around 5,600 hectares. The blaze damaged power lines supplying Jasper National Park with electricity last weekend.
While minor growth occurred in the past 24 hours, Parks Canada anticipates fire behaviour to increase as winds and temperatures rise over the next three days.
"It's also unseasonably hot through this weekend, and the temperatures and low relative humidity are on the rise," said Karly Savoy, Parks Canada spokesperson, at a news conference Saturday morning.
According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, Jasper is forecasted to reach a high of 28 degrees Celsius Saturday, 27 on Sunday, and temperatures within the low 20s all week. No rain is forecasted for the entire week.
There remains no threat to the Jasper townsite or other communities from the wildfire ignited by a lightning strike 10 days ago. Fire growth is anticipated to be at the north and northeast ends of the fire.
"At this time, we're feeling quite good about the progress that we've made," Savoy said. "Already this morning (though), the winds were certainly higher in the main valley than what had been forecast, and we certainly expect that, that could pose problems for control."
Helicopters continue to bucket the flames, as crews continue conducting prescribed fires to burn off surrounding fuel to choke off the wildfire.
"It is quite the air show out there with the amount of helicopters in limited airspace, and we're gonna continue to use those resources as well as our extensive and highly skilled ground crews that we've got deployed," Savoy said.
'EVER-CHANGING CONDITIONS'
As of 6 p.m. Friday, crews were able to restore and hold power to approximately 90 per cent of Jasper with additional generator capacity.
Officials warned residents that generator-produced power does not have the same reliability and encouraged them to continue saving energy to preserve what limited capacity has been brought online.
"Conserving energy is still required," said Amanda Mattern, ATCO regional manager. "The technical complexities and load limitations of the temporary generators has become increasingly evident."
Officials still estimate that intermittent power outages will be likely "over the next few weeks."
Mattern added that construction materials and personnel arrived in Jasper on Friday and will begin rebuilding and repairing power lines damaged by the wildfire.
"The timing of rebuilding the system will depend on the ever-changing conditions of the fire," Mattern said. "We continue to work as quickly and safely as possible in partnership with the municipality and Parks Canada."
The town said it is not considering any evacuations or declaring a local state of emergency at this time.
"The declaration of a state of local emergency allows a municipality to exercise unusual powers, and at this point, we have not seen any need for such powers," town spokesperson Amanda Stevens said.
"If the fire was approaching the community, it might be a different story — if we were actually at risk of an interface between the wildfire and the community."
