UPDATED:
Barely 24 hours after setting the all-time Canadian temperature record of almost 50 degrees Celsius, much of the Village of Lytton has believed to have been destroyed after a catastrophic wildfire.
The entire village of 350 people was evacuated early Wednesday evening after a fire broke out near the town centre. With extremely dry and hot conditions and winds gusting at 71 kilometres per hour, the fire quickly overtook the town.
Mayor of Lytton Jan Polderman was not immediately able to be reached by phone by NL News, but mayor of neighbouring Ashcroft, Barbara Roden, says she spoke to Polderman shortly after the fire started when he was driving south out of town.
“He said it just came up so fast. I gathered RCMP were just going to evacuate Main Street and he said ‘evacuate the whole town,'” Roden, who is also a journalist, said. “People were left not knowing what direction to head in, because the smoke was just so thick, it was moving so fast. There’s been a fairly stiff wind all afternoon blowing from the south, and the ash here and the smoke right now is choking. I can only imagine how horrible it is in Lytton and the confusion down there.”
Thompson-Nicola Regional District spokesperson Michelle Nordstrom tells NL News an emergency reception centre is still being set up.
“It just sounds like everybody needed to get out of the village as quickly as possible and that’s really about where it stands right now,” she said. “I’m sure in the morning maybe we’ll have a little bit more detail on the how and what’s going on next.”
Nordstrom says, including surrounding Indigenous communities and other rural areas, there could be as many as 1,000 people displaced by this fire.
The City of Merritt has activated a reception centre at its Emergency Social Services Building at 1721 Coldwater Avenue. People are being told to check in there even if they do not require assistance after being evacuated.
It’s believed some Lytton residents drove to Merritt when the fire started, while others fled towards Boston Bar and to Lillooet before all of the area highways closed down once the fire started.
While full details of the damage to the village are not clear, and whether there has been loss of life, Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart was among the first to report “catastrophic damage” from the fire.
“It brings back lots of memories of 2017 and 2018, and I’m sure even if people are a long ways away from fires, the smoke just brings back all of that stress. I’m thinking a lot about constituents,” Tegart tells NL News.
Meanwhile, details on the fire currently are not clear, although it has grown substantially and has moved further north.
The BC Wildfire Service has not provided any information to date; according to information officer Shaelee Stearns, that’s because the province is not the lead on this response. “We’re currently working alongside the municipal Fire Brigade in Lytton. But they are the lead agency for this incident, so we are just offering an agency assist on this fire.”
The fire has crossed the Thompson River, and Stearns says this fire was a new start and not associated with the George Road or Conte Creek fires burning just outside of Lytton, and at last report – away from the town.
Meanwhile, barely 25 minutes up the Trans-Canada Highway from Lytton, the small community of Spences Bridge was preparing for a potential evacuation alert Wednesday night, according to area director Steven Rice.
Rice told NL News it looked like he was driving into hell coming from Merritt as he pulled into Spences Bridge, where he also owns a restaurant and a farm.
“All you see is this deep sort of haze. Dark, reddy, tinged. Nothing else. You can see the signs of the town in the background, and the trees are this terrible dirty fog in front of them. It’s just nasty,” Rice syas.
“It’s just a nightmare… You can’t make this shit up. They set the record for highest temperature in Canada three days running, Lytton does, and then on the fourth day, it burns to the ground, the town.”
While a cause of tonight’s fire is also unclear, the fire risk has been extreme in much of southern B.C., including Lytton, for several days. Lytton broke the all-time Canadian heat record on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, cresting at 49.6 degrees Celsius yesterday before a slightly cooler – but still extremely hot – day today.
(Photo: Blair Riley)
– with files form Brett Mineer, Jeff Andreas and Victor Kaisar
UPDATE: Much of Lytton destroyed after catastrophic, fast-moving wildfire Wednesday night - radionl.com
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