OTTAWA — Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said on Wednesday that his ministry is not to blame for the fire that ripped through Jasper National Park this summer, devastating one-third of all structures in the Alberta mountain town, and that nothing could have been done to prevent it.

“(T)here was no stopping this fire, and no forest was going to escape its path,” Guilbeault told a parliamentary committee investigating the federal government’s responsibility for the unprecedented wildfire.