BANFF, Alberta — The loggers’ work was unmistakable. Flanked by dense forests, the 81-acre expanse of land on the mountainside had been stripped nearly clean. …The harvesting of trees would be routine in a commercial forest — but this was in Banff, Canada’s most famous national park. Clear-cutting was once unimaginable in this green jewel, where the longstanding policy was to strictly suppress every fire. But facing a growing threat of wildfires, national park caretakers are increasingly turning to loggers to create fire guards: buffers to stop forest fires from advancing into the rest of the park and nearby towns. “If you were to get a highly intense, rapidly spreading wildfire, this gives fire managers options,’’ David Tavernini, a fire and vegetation expert at Parks Canada, the federal agency that manages national parks, said as he treaded on the cleared forest’s soft floor. [to access the full story a NY Times subscription is required]