By: Dean Bennett and David Boles

EDMONTON (CP) – Thousands of travellers were waking up Tuesday to uncertain circumstances after overnight wildfires in Jasper National Park flared up with a vengeance, forcing thousands to flee.

Everyone in the sprawling park — tourists, hikers, campers, boaters — along with 4,700 residents of the Jasper townsite were ordered out late Monday night as wildfires pinched off escape routes to the east and south.

The result was a long, slow-moving line of cars and trucks heading west through the mountains to B.C. in darkness, swirling smoke, soot and ash.

Many evacuees sought refuge for the night in Valemount, B.C., a town of 1,000 about 120 kilometres west of Jasper.

“The community’s pretty full,” said town administrator Anne Yanciw in an interview.

“Every parking lot, boulevard, side of the road, field … anything that looks like it could fit a vehicle is full.”

Some evacuees spent the night on the floor of the local arena. Others bunked down at the Legion. A local church was serving a pancake breakfast while drinks, snacks, information and a respite were on offer at Valemount’s community hall and visitors’ centre. 

“It’s all hands on deck,” Yanciw said.

She said most travellers were beginning to make their way down the smoky road — slowly, but without incident. 

“The hope is that most of them will find the long way back to Alberta,” Yanciw said. 

On Monday night, photos and video shared on social media illuminated a midnight cavalcade of bumper-to-bumper cars and trucks, headlights on, red tail lights glowing, cars inching, stopping, starting, crawling through swirling tendrils of acrid smoke.

“It’s wall-to-wall traffic,” said Edmonton resident Carolyn Campbell in a phone interview from her vehicle. 

“It (the smoke) is pretty thick. We’ve got masks in the car.”

Campbell said it took hours to move just seven kilometres. She said they had enough gas but worried for others who fled with little in the tank.

The Jasper townsite and the park’s main east-west artery Highway 16  were caught in a fiery pincer. Fires threatening from the northeast cut off highway access east to Edmonton.

Another fire roaring up from the south forced the closure of the north-south Icefields Parkway. That left one route open — west to B.C.

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.

In B.C., the province has promised to help find places to stay.

“B.C. will do everything we can to provide safe refuge for evacuees from Jasper, and are working as quickly as possible to co-ordinate routes and arrange host communities on our side of the border,” Bowinn Ma, B.C.’s minister for emergency management, said in a post on the social media site X.

Jasper National Park is the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, home to campgrounds, scenic rivers and lakes, and extensive trail networks.

The Jasper blazes were one of multiple fires throughout Alberta that had already forced another 7,500 people out in a string of remote communities.

The province has been baking and sweltering for days in scorching 30 C plus temperatures. 

More than 160 wildfires were burning across Alberta, coughing up clouds of smoke, obscuring the sky.

Meanwhile, British Columbia’s wildfire service says a significant change in the weather could cause another burst of wildfire activity, with extensive thunderstorms expected in the north and parts of the south following weeks of hot and dry weather. 

A bulletin from the service says B.C. saw thousands of lightning strikes over the weekend, mostly in the north, with more in the forecast.

Environment Canada has issued rainfall warnings for parts of northwestern B.C., while in the northeast, the forecast for Fort Nelson shows the risk of a thunderstorm, a chance of showers and widespread smoke from fires in the area.

The wildfire service says isolated downpours may be accompanied by hail and erratic winds with potential to fan more than 360 wildfires burning across the province.

The service says the weather could hamper crews’ ability to respond to wildfires, with winds affecting fire behaviour and the stability of trees, and downpours potentially affecting aerial efforts as well as dirt roads used by firefighters.

Environment Canada has lifted heat warnings that covered parts of the province for weeks, replacing them with a special air quality statement due to wildfire smoke spanning the length of B.C.’s boundary with Alberta. 

The weather office says the smoke is widespread, though “significant improvements” are expected as winds arrive to push the smoke east.

It adds that smoke will linger in valleys and around active blazes.

There are currently four “wildfires of note” in B.C., including the nearly 200-square-kilometre Shetland Creek fire burning between Ashcroft and Spences Bridge in the southern Interior, where several evacuation orders remain in effect.

An evacuation alert is meanwhile in effect for properties on the west side of Williams Lake, where crews stopped a fast-moving fire from advancing further into the central Interior community after it destroyed structures in an industrial area.

B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation is discouraging non-essential travel to the Interior, saying those who must travel should do so with plenty of gas, food, water and emergency supplies, and be prepared for road closures and delays.

There has also been an influx of travellers into B.C. after wildfires flared up in Jasper National Park in Alberta on Monday night, forcing park visitors and 4,700 residents of the Jasper townsite to flee west with little notice.

Photos and video shared on social media show a midnight cavalcade of bumper-to-bumper vehicles making slow progress through swirling tendrils of acrid smoke.

B.C.’s minister of emergency management, Bowinn Ma, said in a social media post that the province would do everything it can to provide safe refuge for evacuees.