19 hours ago
Sparks from an RCMP vehicle mishap ignited fire threatening Lytton
An RCMP equipment failure is responsible for igniting a wildfire near Lytton, B.C., stirring painful memories for a community that is still rebuilding after being levelled by fire four years earlier.
A Mountie who was in the area searching for a missing swimmer was towing a police boat along Highway 12 northeast of the village in B.C.'s Interior on Canada Day when a wheel ejected from the right side of the trailer, causing a fire in a grass-filled ditch, said B.C. RCMP spokesman Staff Sergeant Kris Clark.
The officer pulled over and used a fire extinguisher on the flames but was unable to contain their spread.
'This is a tremendously unfortunate set of circumstances that demonstrates the need for extreme caution and fire awareness during our long wildfire season,' Staff Sgt. Clark said in an e-mail.
The out-of-control blaze, now called the Izman Creek fire, had grown to 155 hectares by Thursday. The Thompson-Nicola Regional District, which encompasses Lytton, has issued an evacuation order for three properties and an evacuation alert for nine others. The village is about 250 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.
The BC Wildfire Service has assigned three initial attack crews, one unit crew, three additional personnel and three helicopters to the blaze.
A smaller fire closer to the village – the Nikaia Creek fire, discovered June 30 – was largely contained by community firefighters and members of the Lytton First Nation and is now considered under control, at 5.73 hectares.
There were 86 wildfires burning across B.C. on Thursday, including seven considered out of control.
Lytton Mayor Denise O'Connor said the timing of the fires is not lost on community members. Exactly four years earlier, Lytton shattered Canadian heat records for three consecutive days, reaching a blistering 49.6 C before a fast-moving fire swept through, razing the village and killing two residents.
'There are still so many people triggered by the smell of smoke and seeing flames,' Ms. O'Connor said in an interview on Thursday. 'Even four years later, it's still very, very real for people.'
The rebuilding process has been halting. Only about 40 per cent of the village's 250 residents had insurance at the time of the 2021 fire, making rebuilding impossible for some. Many core businesses, such as the grocery store, pharmacy and bank, have yet to return. Debris removal, soil remediation, and costly and protracted archeological work posed further challenges.
Experts estimate the Nlaka'pamux people first settled in the area, then called Kumsheen, more than 10,000 years ago, using it as an important meeting place between coastal and Interior bands. Built partly on an ancient archeological site and burial ground, the entire village is protected under B.C.'s Heritage Conservation Act.
But Ms. O'Connor said the past year has seen considerable progress. Major water and sewer repairs are under way, the Public Works building now has a roof and doors and an architect has been contracted to design a new community hub. Construction should begin later this summer on a new village office.
There are now 11 occupied homes, the mayor's included, while six more are in various stages of construction.
'It doesn't sound like many to somebody from the city, I suppose, but for us, it's a large number,' Ms. O'Connor said.
Tricia Thorpe, an area director for Blue Sky Country in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, lost her home just outside of the village, along with a dog, in the 2021 fire. But she and her husband managed to rescue two other dogs, nine puppies, four alpacas and five sheep, and were quick to rebuild her home.
Ms. Thorpe said while there has been much attention on the new fires because of the anniversary, the community has dealt with numerous encroaching fires every year.
'This is nothing unusual for our community,' she said. 'Natural disasters are not a one-off any more – they're consistent.'
As electoral area director, Ms. Thorpe now advocates for more supports, and better communication, with provincial partners in efforts to mitigate the effects of natural disasters that have now become a common occurrence.
She cited as examples the need to better maintain evacuation routes, which in rural communities are often single forest service roads, and to properly train and resource small community-based firefighting groups so they can put out small fires before they grow large – as volunteers did at the Nikaia Creek fire this week.
'The BC Wildfire Service do a great job, but it takes time to get resources to where they need to be,' Ms. Thorpe said in an interview on Thursday.
'I think we need to have these groups that are ready to go, because if they can knock a fire before it becomes these monsters that we're seeing, that's huge, and we can save a heck of a lot of money.'
In a statement, the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness said that it offers jurisdictions funding for evacuation route planning through its Community Emergency Preparedness Fund. As well, when a jurisdiction includes a forest service road as part of its evacuation planning, this is communicated to the local Forest Service District office, which then works with the local government or regional district on mitigation plans as needed.
On community involvement, the Ministry of Forests cited its Community Resilience Investment program, which supports wildfire risk reduction projects on Crown land and funding for FireSmart projects in communities across the province.
