Parks Canada is preparing for a long battle with the Jasper wildfire complex, saying that it could rage on until November. Although recent precipitation has helped firefighting efforts on the ground, Parks Canada incident commander Landon Shepherd said in an update Tuesday that it hasn’t changed the long term “prognosis” of the blaze. “We’re expecting that the fire season will continue like it has for the last five fire seasons, where it may extend right into early November,” said Shepherd. Alberta Wildfire said it wouldn’t be uncommon to have a fire burn into the fall… “It depends on how much precipitation they get – it would not be unusual for a large scale wildfire to take several weeks certainly, if not months, to fully extinguish,” said Christie Tucker, Alberta Wildfire information unit manager. The status of the fire is still out of control and burning approximately 34,000 hectares and spanning more than 30 kilometres.

Additional coverage by Wallis Snowdon in CBC News: Summer could be over long before the fight to tame the Jasper wildfire is won