The city that caught fire in just 15 minutes the same day Canada recorded nearly 50 ° C

Many people avoided going out on the streets because of the heat, and Lytton was even calmer than usual.

Only 250 people live in the small village, and the indigenous reserves that surround it were home to another 1,000 inhabitants. The picturesque community is located 260 km northwest of Vancouver, at the meeting point of two rivers, the Thompson and the Fraser.

Residents describe the place as a community with close ties, immersed in Indigenous history. It was a place where “everyone knows everyone” in the words of one of them.

Barber had moved there ten years ago and immediately felt at home.

“I found a place where I felt welcome in so many ways,” she recalls. “I call them (neighbors) family.”

On the day of the fire, June 30, Barber was focused on returning home from work when he saw flames and smoke rising from the town.

Fires are common during summers in British Columbia, so Barber paid little attention, believing the flames would soon be contained.

But after returning his work vehicle and heading back to town, he saw a fire engine pass, sounding its alarm and blocking the road. One of the firefighters warned him that Lytton was on fire.

“I looked at him but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I had seen the fire on the path and it wasn’t everywhere, it was in one place,” she said.

On the side of the road alongside other residents, Barber managed to make two phone calls before his cell phones broke. The first was whether any of his elderly friends were safe. The second was to ask her owner to take her cat inside – she had locked him inside to protect him from the heat outside.

For the next six hours, she waited for news as she watched her town burn.

Meanwhile, resident N’kixw’stn James, who spent her life in Lytton, was finishing her shower and watching TV when a man walked into her house shouting, “You have to get out of here. Lytton is in fire.”

James, 76, rushed into the bedroom and traded his pajamas for clothes. She grabbed a bag of evacuation supplies, her purse, car keys and cell phone as the man yelled at her to get out.

“When I went out, I saw a storm of hot ash,” she recalls.

She crashed into the car and the steering wheel was so hot it burned her hand.

“I started to move away from home. A few meters later, I heard an explosion. My propane gas tank had exploded.

James continued to drive, trying to find a safe way through the smoke that blocked his view. When he took refuge, he received help from a nurse, who took care of his arms, legs and face, all of which were burnt to the ashes.

Across the Fraser River, Nonie McCann witnessed the devastation.

She had received a phone call from a neighbor around 5 p.m. asking if she knew where the smoke was coming from outside Lytton. Then she learned that the city was on fire, and a friend asked her if she and her husband could help by erecting some kind of water pumping station.

“We were devastated to see entire houses engulfed in fire,” he recalls. “These were houses we knew. We didn’t have a chance to start pumping water and the smoke was very intense. So we had to go back.”

She said she experienced a wave of emotions: “the sheer horror of what I saw, immense pain for the catastrophic loss and worry, hoping everyone had managed to escape safely.”

Unable to help, she sat down and watched from her shore as “building after building was swept up in flames” and helicopters splashed water.

The hardest part, she said, was not being able to communicate with people.

in other parts of British Columbia, parents of Lytton residents were also eagerly awaiting news.

Verna Miller learned of the fire from her husband, who had watched the tragedy on television.

The couple had met in Lytton and Miller’s older sister still lived there. A cousin who lived 30 minutes away rushed into town to help him.

When the cousin arrived, Miller’s sister still had no idea the fire was ravaging her community.

They both managed to get out in time to escape the fire that destroyed the house and everything inside.

Back on the side of the highway where Meriel Barber was waiting, she arranged for friends to take her to a house that had survived the fire.

She spent the next few days there without access to clean water or electricity, and used a propane stove to cook.

She then learned that her house had died from the fire, with her cat inside.

According to Brad Vis, a member of the local parliament, the whole tragedy unfolded in just 15 minutes of the fire. In total, around 90% of the city was destroyed and many forest reserves surrounding it were burnt to the ground.

Vis said it was “an unprecedented situation – even in this part of the world, where fires occur every year.”

“Some of the first responders I spoke to told me they had never seen an entire community burn down like in Lytton.”

The case has become iconic amid a summer of deadly heatwaves and other fires, putting climate change at the top of the debate in Monday’s Canadian election (9/20), called by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an attempt to secure a majority in Parliament – a strategy that could fail as his party faces a fierce conflict with the Conservatives.

In the campaign, several candidates have used the Lytton tragedy as a warning about the effects of global warming, while the exact origins of the blaze are still being investigated.

“The cost of inaction (against climate change) has been that an entire city has been destroyed by a forest fire,” argued Jagmeet Singh, leader of the Social Democratic Party of the NDP.

Heat waves are becoming more frequent and extreme due to climate change induced by human behavior, and this hot, dry weather favors fires.

The world has warmed by about 1.2 ° C since the start of the industrial age, and temperatures will continue to rise if governments around the world do not drastically reduce emissions of polluting gases.

In Lytton, the displaced community is now trying to rebuild itself, including trying to make the new village more resistant to fires and other natural disasters, and less dependent on external energy sources.

“It is[arareopportunitytocreateacommunitywithavisionforthefuture:takingintoaccountextrememeteorologicaleventsworkingincollaborationwithindigenouspeoplesandnonauts”affirmsNonieMcCann[eumaoportunidaderaradecriarumacomunidadecomumaboravisãoparaofutaçaCoevando-manoclassogenão[uneoccasionraredecréerunecommunautéavecunevisionpourl’avenir :entenantcomptedesévénementsmétéorologiquesextrêmesentravaillantencollaborationaveclespeuplesautochtonesetnonautochtones »affirmeNonieMcCann[eumaoportunidaderaradecriarumacomunidadecomumavisãoparaofuturo:levandoemcontaeventosclimáticosextremostrabalhandoemcolaboraçãocompovosindígenasenãoindígenas”argumentaNonieMcCann

“There will be enormous struggles and difficulties to overcome, but step by step, day by day, let’s celebrate our community again.”

Meriel Barber, meanwhile, lives in her van. She managed to salvage some items from the wreckage of her house – a sculpture, her jewelry box, and a small trailer – but most of the rest was reduced to ashes.

“I have a son who passed away, and all the memories I had of him, (along with) a beloved quilt made by my mother and more artwork made by me or others, everything I had kept so carefully for years – it’s all gone and cannot be replaced, ”she laments.

But despite the “layers of grief” experienced by the fire, she says that with the community, she thinks about the future.

“The motto is ‘Lytton Strong’ and we look forward to it.”

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