BANFF – Parks Canada is ramping up plans for logging and prescribed fire work to reduce the risk of a catastrophic wildfire to the Banff townsite following decades of fire suppression in surrounding forests throughout the national park. Much of the work is already underway, with more in the coming year or two, which Parks Canada officials say is on top of 7,000 hectares of logging, thinning and prescribed burns already completed over the past 10 years in Banff National Park and almost 15,000 ha over the past 15-year period. “We have a really busy program here; we are one of the programs that has done the most in the past 10 to 20 years,” said Jane Park, fire and vegetation management specialist for Banff National Park during a presentation to Banff town council Monday (Feb. 10). “We’re trying to mitigate risk from every angle.”