(Lytton) This week marks the fourth anniversary of a deadly forest fire which ravaged the village of Lytton, British Columbia, and the community is again threatened.
A fire is uncontrollable north of the community, triggering orders and evacuation alerts.
The fire of Izman Creek, near Lytton, led the regional district of Thompson-Nicola to disseminate an evacuation order for three properties and an evacuation alert for nine addresses along the road 12.
The Lytton First Nation also issued an evacuation alert for a large area encompassing several of its reserves on the eastern bank of the Fraser river.
The British Columbia Forest Fire Service indicates that the fire discovered on Tuesday quickly spread to reach around 25 hectares, causing the road closure in the two directions over 60 kilometers, while the land and air control teams intervene.
Human activity would be at the origin of the fire, said the service.
Fires near Lytton are among the 480 braids that rage in Canada, including more than 80 in British Columbia.
Alexandria Jones, from the Interservices Center for Forest Fire of Canada, said Canada has been at the national level of preparation five, the highest since May 29.
This designation means that forest fire activity is important in several courts and that all Canadian fire-fighting resources are mobilized in this struggle, while international partners are also called for help, she explained.
Mme Jones said that the country’s situation is “serious” and that there are still three months before the end of the fire season.
“What is really crucial is the burned area and the speed of spread of fires. This year, we are already four million hectares. »»
Although this figure represents about half of that recorded at the same period in 2023, the worst fire season ever recorded in Canada, this year’s balance sheet is much higher than that of early July in 2024, 2022, 2021 and 2020.
Just over a million hectares had burned the same period last year, said Mme Jones, while a little under 190,000 hectares had burned in early July 2022. At the same period in 2021, 493,000 hectares had burned.
The manager said Canada has so far received help from firefighters from the United States, Australia, Mexico and Costa Rica.
In British Columbia, the Thompson-Nicola regional district had previously declared the local state of emergency for the Blue Sky Country region due to another nearby forest fire, which was out of control before being classified as “mastered” on Wednesday.
Similar situation in other provinces
About 80 fires are active in Yukon. The territorial government published a press release on Wednesday indicating that the teams had progressed in the control of “priority fires”, thanks to cooler and wet conditions.
The bulletin indicated that the territory raised the restriction of level 2 fire issued on June 27 for the regions of the lakes of the South, Tatchun, Tutchones of the North, Klondike and Kluane. The usual burning rules during the fire season remain in force.
The territorial government had previously raised the evacuation alert for the region surrounding Lake Ethel, a four -hour drive north of Whitehorse.
In Alberta, firefighters are fighting against more than 60 forest fires, 18 of which are declared out of control.
In Saskatchewan, the number of active forest fires has more than tripled last week. The province reported 64 active lights on Wednesday, including 20 not controlled. There were 20 active lights last week.
Marlo Pritchard, of the Saskatchewan Public Security Agency, announced to journalists at a virtual press conference that the residents of Bear Creek and Diving, in the northwest of the province, received an evacuation order.
He said the agency supported more than 200 people who fled their homes. At the height of forest fires last month, they forced more than 10,000 residents of Saskatchewan to leave their homes.
In Denare Beach, 650 kilometers northeast of Saskatoon, 218 houses burned, more than half of the municipality. The province indicated that it had paid $ 500 unique checks to people evacuated aged 18 and over, at a cost of 5.1 million.
Photo provided by Will Penner, Archives La Presse Canada
Houses destroyed by the flames in Denare Beach
Statistics of the Interservices Center for Forest Fire of Canada indicate that around 180 of the forest fires in the country are out of control.
Lytton, about 250 kilometers northeast of Vancouver, is still under reconstruction after a devastating fire that ravaged the municipality four years ago on Monday, killing two people and destroying a large part of the village and part of the Lytton First Nation.
This fire left two dead and destroyed a large part of the village and part of the Lytton First Nation.
The fire triggered on June 30, 2021, one day after Lytton set a Canadian temperature record of 49.6 degrees Celsius.
