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Before the Slave Lake fires, there had been few major wildfires in Alberta that took out homes.

The last wildfire causing widespread damage to a community was in 1919 when the Town of Lac La Biche was destroyed, and 14 people lost their lives. Since 1919, and prior to the 2011 wildfires in the Slave Lake area, the most significant losses were experienced in 2001 when a wildfire destroyed 10 homes in the hamlet of Chisholm.

But the number of human-caused fires has been rising rapidly, from slightly more than 200 per year in 1993 to more than 1,100 a year by 2011. After human activity, lightning is the next biggest cause of wildfires, responsible for 40 per cent of them.

Of the 189 wildfires in May 2011, 52 were in the Lesser Slave area, including the two that hit the town itself. One fire destroyed 428 homes, seven apartments and 19 other buildings in Slave Lake. A second wildfire burned 56 homes in nearby communities. In total 15,000 residents were evacuated.

One fire started 25 kilometres from Slave Lake and spread quickly. The second fire started eight kilometres from town. The two burned 22,000 hectares.

In Slave Lake, the blaze was battled by eight Alberta wildfire crews with 48 firefighters and 11 B.C. crews with 220 firefighters, along with 15 air tankers, 10 planes and 34 helicopters. They also used 33 bulldozers and 15 water trucks.

The panel considered the Slave Lake fires “the strongest warning to date that expanded residential and industrial development in Alberta’s wildlands, in combination with increasingly severe wildfire conditions, requires increased focus and collaboration to minimize risk to health and safety, and reduce damages and losses.”

To fight the blazes, the committee recommended a higher state of readiness and developed the FireSmart plan to help communities prepare for fire. “Although Alberta has provided reasonable funding for wildfire management resources, that budget is continuing to be eroded by increasing operational costs and an expanding wildfire management workload of approximately five-plus per cent per year,” the report said.

The panel pushed for widespread fire bans, forest area closures, and elevated fines during extreme weather.