Canadian Wildfires Won’t Disrupt Banff World Media Festival, Say Organizers
Organizers of the Banff World Media Festival, which annually attracts top Hollywood talent and execs, say devastating wildfires in Alberta do not pose any threat to the industry event, which gets underway Sunday.
“There are no major wildfires within or near Banff National Park and air quality is not presently an issue in Banff,” Jenn Kuzmyk, executive director of the Banff TV Festival told The Hollywood Reporter.
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The festival all-clear came as top industry execs such as CBS CEO George Cheeks, Fremantle CEO Jennifer Mullin and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actors Celia Rose Gooding and Ethan Peck are set to participate in informal conversations and panels in Banff National Park next week.
Also headed to Banff, where wilderness-bound Hollywood celebrities annually have to contend with little more than pesky mosquitoes and deer and elk sightings, are This Is Us writer Elan Mastai; Killing It star and The Office alum Craig Robinson, who will host the Banff Rockie Awards; and World of Wonder co-founders Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, who will receive The Hollywood Reporter’s Impact Award while at the festival.
The government of Alberta on its official website says the threat of forest fires in the Calgary region remains very high amid tinder-dry conditions, while the Banff National Park remains open and under no imminent threat. The province had 72 active blazes on Friday, but all are well away from Banff and mostly in the province’s central and northern regions, including near Jasper National Park.
Two evacuation orders were issued for Yellowhead County, in the northwest of Alberta, on Thursday. The quality of air in Banff and the surrounding region impacted by provincial wildfires is also classified as low risk.
There’s more good news for Banff delegates: recent record high temperatures for Alberta in May and June are expected to ease as rain showers are forecast for Banff during the festival’s run from Sunday-Wednesday.
That’s against the backdrop of billowing plumes of Alberta wildfire smoke continuing to drift east. That, along with smoke from other Canadian forest fires in Quebec and Nova Scotia, this week brought a thick haze and hazardous air quality levels to the U.S. eastern seaboard, including New York City some 3,000 miles away.
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