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B.C.s 2021 wildfire season began officially when the George Road fire seven kilometres south of Lytton was reported on June 17. Three weeks later the Village of Lytton was destroyed by an unrelated blaze and there were 100 active fires.
It is asking residents to have a plan to transport all family members or co-workers outside of the area if an evacuation order is issued.
About 300 fires have flared up over the last 10 days, many of which were sparked by lightning. Most of the blazes took place in the Cariboo and Kamloops fire centres.
Canadian Press
The District of Coldstream has rescinded an evacuation order on Clarke Road because of a wildfire burning near Coldstream, east of Vernon.
That means residents can return home but they remain on evacuation alert.
The BC Wildfire Service says the fire is estimated at 20 hectares in size and is now classified as being held, which means that sufficient suppression action has been taken and the fire is not likely to spread beyond existing boundaries.
The BC Wildfire Service is assisting the District of Coldstream, City of Vernon and the Regional District of North Okanagan on the Clerke Road (K41708) wildfire located approximately 4 kilometres southwest of Vernon, adjacent to Highway 97.
More than a week after a wildfire swept through town, Lyttons main street is an alien place.
Trucks with melted wheels sit outside charred shops. Brick chimneys anchor piles of debris. A picket fence encloses the ashy ruins of a house. Skeleton trees border a lawn that is somehow still green.
Lytton residents and journalists toured the devastated town on Friday, more than one week after residents fled for their lives as a wildfire surged through town, killing two people.
The town on the banks of the muddy Fraser River is dramatically altered. Only a handful of structures remain, including the post office and church, and there is a dreadful symmetry to the grey ruins.
Power lines lie in tangles on the sidewalks. Several buildings seem to have collapsed, while others were incinerated. Gone is the clinic, the RCMP detachment and an assisted-living home.
Crews cleared a path through the debris for the tours, and participants were required to wear N95 masks as protection against toxic smoke.
The town was quiet apart from the sound of a generator and the occasional helicopter passing overhead toting water to a fire on nearby hillsides.
Read more HERE.
-Glenda Luymes
B.C. has been dealing with a lot of grief lately, from the pandemic and opioid health crises to the grisly discovery of bodies in unmarked graves at a residential school to a deadly heat wave and wildfires.
Its a lot to process.
Jonny Morris, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association, B.C. Division, said the impacts of the heat and wildfires and the overall climate emergency are having a significant impact on the emotional and mental health of B.C. residents.
Its also really important to remember that with more than 750 sudden deaths (during the heat wave) there are a lot of people experiencing grief and bereavement right now, he said.
That is on top of all the anguish caused by the pandemic, the opioid crisis, and the residential school findings. Morris added that anxiety may also be affecting past disaster victims, for example those who had to flee their homes in 2017 because of the devastating wildfires or the 2018 Grand Forks floods.
Any kind of event that is traumatic and you see it again happening elsewhere, people can feel triggered, have flashbacks or worries, even if you are not in a community being affected, he said.
Some residents also have what experts now call eco-anxiety or climate change grief because they are watching these disaster events, which scientists predicted would become greater in frequency and intensity with climate change, and they become stressed about the future.
Morris said climate change grief needs to become part of the health care planning by the province.
What kind of mental health supports are going to be needed? What framework is needed to deal with the mental health impacts of climate change and they are significant, he said.We need to talk about the mental health impacts of these big existential threats.
Read more HERE.
-Tiffany Crawford
A menacing ball of smoke blew from downtown Lytton towards Erik Siwiks home and, within minutes, the trees lining his property exploded, pushing heat and smoke into his living room and sending him running for safety to a nearby schoolyard.
He took shelter behind a large metal garbage bin, but was suddenly engulfed in dense, acrid-smelling smoke that he could not see through and made it nearly impossible to breathe.
When this black cloud came over, I figured thats it, thats where I die, Siwik recalled.
Then the RCMP station across the street exploded in a fury of intense heat and flames that, in a matter of seconds, singed his skin, leaving him with first- and second-degree burns. The fire was shooting like a blow torch.
Siwik stumbled down a flight of stairs into the schools playground and collapsed on a bench, where local first responders spotted him and took him to a community muster station. Volunteers rubbed ice on his burns while waiting for an ambulance and their kindness made him feel like he had escaped hell and ended up in heaven.
Read more HERE.
-Lori Culbert
Friday, July 9
The Transportation Safety Board is sending investigators to Lytton to look into whether a train may have caused the wildfire that destroyed the town and left at least two people dead.
In a short statement issued Friday, the TSB said it will gather information and assess the occurrence of a fire potentially involving a freight train.
#TSBRail is deploying a team of investigators to Lytton, British Columbia following a fire potentially involving a freight train. The TSB will gather information and assess the occurrencehttps://t.co/HNPniLYnfI
The deadly fire swept through Lytton more than a week ago following an intense heatwave. Two people were killed, and the majority of the village was burned to the ground.
Officials are investigating the fire, but have not mentioned a possible cause.
The TSB is also sending an investigator to a train fire involving a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train near Sparwood.
Media and residents are being permitted back into Lytton, B.C. on Friday for their first look at the town following a devastating fire last week.
Reporter Glenda Luymes is in attendance as a part of a media tour and will be sharing observations and images from the scene.
Check back for updates HERE.
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra is ordering most trains in the vicinity of Lytton to halt as residents return temporarily to the wildfire-scorched community.
Alghabra says the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways must cease movement for 48 hours, except for emergency fire response and maintenance and repair work, on stretches of track spanning parts of the British Columbia interior.
He says the aim is safe rail operations and public safety as residents arrive in Lytton today by bus to inspect their homes after evacuating the village when a wildfire swept in last week.
-The Canadian Press
Local governments and First Nations in 54 communities have been approved to receive their share of more than $1.8 million in provincial emergency preparedness funding to support the work of emergency operations centres, the government said Friday morning.
The intent of this funding stream is to support eligible applicants to buy equipment and supplies to maintain or improve their emergency operations centres and to enhance the capacity of these local emergency co-ordination hubs through training and exercises.
Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth said thefunding for emergency operations centres is crucial, and it will give communities a boost in their ability to respond.
Though the approval of funding for these projects has been going on for some time, recent extreme wildfire events demonstrate just how vital emergency operations centres are in responding to emergencies, he said, in a statement.
Since the September 2017 Budget update, communities and governments throughout B.C. have received more than $67 million through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund.
The money goes to flood risk assessment, flood mapping and flood mitigation planning, emergency support services, emergency operations centres and training, structural flood mitigation, evacuation route planning,Indigenous cultural safety and cultural humility training, and volunteer and composite fire departments equipment and training.
#BCWildfire Service is supporting the Elko Fire Department in responding to the Kikomun Creek fire (N11604), ~6.5km NW of the community of Elko. It is currently estimated at 0.5 ha. There is an initial attack crew currently on scene, being supported by a helicopter bucketing...
Thursday, July 8
The B.C. SPCA rescued 41 animals from fire-ravaged Lytton on Thursday.
Staff from the animal welfare agency was granted access to the village beyond evacuation lines between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Based on lists provided by residents to the SPCA, the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and Lytton First Nation, the SPCA found 12 cats, five kittens, four dogs, and 20 farm animals and transported them to safety.
Pets were taken to the SPCAs animal evacuation centre in Kamloops or to veterinary clinics, while the farm animals were taken to foster homes.
Forty-six homes at a mobile home park in East Kootenay were evacuated Thursday afternoon due to a wildfire burning along the railway track.
The Regional District of East Kootenay has set up a reception centre for residents of Caithness Mobile Home Park at the Elko Community Hall.
The 0.6-hectare Kikomun Creek fire is burning along a railway line near Highway 3 in the community of Elko, about 30 kilometres south of Fernie.
UPDATE: Ground crews were able to more accurately track the fire and it is now approximately 0.6 hectares in size. pic.twitter.com/Retg0KMsgU
B.C. Wildfire crews as well as firefighters from the regional district are on the scene. Eight fire trucks are fighting the blaze from the ground, while a helicopter and air tanker drop water and fire retardant from the air.
The fire is visible from Highway 3. Officials are urging drivers to avoid stopping in the area.
Premier John Horgan says he will lobby Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to deploy Canadas military to help prevent wildfires.
Trudeau and Horgan are meeting later on Thursday with local and First Nations leaders to discuss the recent wildfire devastation of the Fraser Canyon village of Lytton and the ongoing extreme fire situation across the province.
Horgan says B.C. is experienced and accustomed to dealing with wildfires during the summer months, but massive, destructive fires over the past five years now demand governments look at new approaches to prevent and fight fires.
During a news conference with Trudeau today about child-care funding, Horgan said the military could be called upon to serve in a fire prevention role by clearing forest debris to reduce fuel before fires start.
Trudeau says the federal governments primary concerns are currently focused on supporting the residents of Lytton, but future methods of fire prevention must be considered.
There are more than 200 active fires burning across the province, of which 15 are classified as highly visible or potentially threatening, including the blaze that destroyed Lytton last week and a 392-square-kilometre fire northwest of Kamloops.
Canadian Press
More than two dozen wildfires sparked overnight across B.C. and the BC Wildfire Service website shows nearly half are believed to have been caused by lightning.
One of those blazes has already charred more than two-square kilometres of bush in northwestern B.C., forcing an evacuation order and alerts for properties around Bulkley Lake.
The wildfire service says the fire is classified as out of control but 15 firefighters, backed by five pieces of heavy equipment, worked through the night to keep flames away from any structures.
The evacuation area covers a section of Highway 16 northwest of Burns Lake as well as part of CN Rails main line to Prince Rupert but DriveBC, the provinces online road condition website, does not list any travel disruptions.
There are more than 200 active fires burning across the province, of which 15 are classified as highly visible or potentially threatening, including the blaze that destroyed the Village of Lytton last week and a 392-square kilometre fire northwest of Kamloops.
Both those fires remain out of control with the fire danger rating for most of B.C. ranked at high to extreme.
Canadian Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in B.C. today, and will first meet with members of his cabinetsIncident Response Group this morning to discuss wildfires burning across the province and the heat wave.
In the afternoon, he will meet with Lytton Mayor Jan Polderman, Chief Janet Webster of the Lytton First Nation, and chair of the Nlakapamux Nation Tribal Council Chief Matt Pasco in Coquitlam to discuss recovery effortsfrom a wildfire that destroyed thevillage last week.
B.C. is the third province on Trudeaus cross-country tour,following visits to Alberta and Saskatchewan.
-The Canadian Press
The Regional District of Bulkley Nechako issued an evacuation order late Wednesday night for the area of Rose Lake, about 10 kilometres to the west of Bulkley Lake and anevacuation alert for an area north of the order area.
The BC Wildfire Service says the Bulkley Lake wildfire, which was discovered Wednesday, is burning out of control four kilometres west of Rose Lake.
The cause of the blaze was a lightning strike.
Wetsuweten First Nation has issued a Band Council Resolution for Duncan Lake IR #2 due to immediate danger to life safety because of the the wildfire.
Members of the RCMP and Search and Rescue will be expediting the evacuation order, which affects homes east of Bedore Road to West of Broman Lake Road, and south of Bulkley Lake including Duncan Lake IR #2, not including Highway 16 and CN rail line.
Wednesday, July 7
An evacuation order for nearly 100 homes threatened by the out-of-control Napier Lake wildfire has been rescinded.
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District issued the order at around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday for 96 properties located in Electoral Area J (Copper Desert Country), Electoral Area L (Grasslands) and Electoral Area M (Beautiful Nicola Valley-North). Two hours later, the evacuation order was downgraded to an evacuation alert.
UPDATE: Due to the rain and suppression efforts on the Napier Lake wildfire (K21556), the Thompson-Nicola Regional District has downgraded the Evacuation Order to an Alert for the 96 properties affected. Please contact @TNRD for more info. #BCWildfire
The Napier Lake wildfire, which was ignited today, is burning about 30 kilometres south of Kamloops.
The B.C. Wildfire Service said six firefighters are fighting the blaze, with support for air tankers and three helicopters. The fire is estimated at about a quarter of a square kilometre Wednesday night.
The B.C. SPCA has been granted access to Lytton to rescue pets and farm animals left behind by residents who had to flee their homes as a devastating wildfire swept through the village.
SPCA special constables will enter Lytton Thursday, armed with a growing list of requests from animal owners worried about their pets and livestock.
We have officers and transport vehicles standing by to attend the properties as soon as we have access tomorrow, said Lorie Chortyk of the B.C. SPCA in a release. It is our goal to get every animal out but we are working with a one-day window, which is challenging.
Read more here:
B.C. wildfires update for July 10: Evacuation alert issued for residents of Canim Lake | Evacuation order lifted near Vernon | Lytton residents...