"90% burned": Canada's 49.6°C village destroyed by wildfire
July 1 2021:
It has been reported that local MP Brad Vis said that around 90% of the Canadian village which saw temperatures up to 49.6°C which was Canada's highest temperature on record has been burnt by rapidly spreading wildfires.
Even the automatic weather station had stopped sending observations. The weather station has temperature records all the way back to 1921.
The village had been inhabited by the indigenous people for over 10,000 years and by non-Indigenous people since 1858.
Jan Polderman, Mayor of Lytton, told the BBC he had been "lucky to get out with my own life".
"There won't be very much left of Lytton," he said. "There was fire everywhere."
Mr Polderman told the BBC's Newshour programme his town was engulfed by a "wall of fire".
He had earlier ordered people to evacuate, saying flames had spread through the village in just 15 minutes.
"Within about 15 minutes the whole town was engulfed in flame," Mayor Polderman told the BBC.
"People basically just grabbed their pets, grabbed their keys and got into their car and fled."
"You can't even comprehend it," Lytton evacuee Edith Loring-Kuhanga told CBC Radio. "Our entire town is gone.".
The population of the village municipality as of the 2016 census was 249,with another 1,700 in the immediate area living in rural areas and on reserves of the neighbouring six Nlaka'pamux communities.
Climate change increases wildfire risk and also leads to more frequent and intense heatwaves.
It has been reported that local MP Brad Vis said that around 90% of the Canadian village which saw temperatures up to 49.6°C which was Canada's highest temperature on record has been burnt by rapidly spreading wildfires.
Even the automatic weather station had stopped sending observations. The weather station has temperature records all the way back to 1921.
The village had been inhabited by the indigenous people for over 10,000 years and by non-Indigenous people since 1858.
Jan Polderman, Mayor of Lytton, told the BBC he had been "lucky to get out with my own life".
"There won't be very much left of Lytton," he said. "There was fire everywhere."
Mr Polderman told the BBC's Newshour programme his town was engulfed by a "wall of fire".
He had earlier ordered people to evacuate, saying flames had spread through the village in just 15 minutes.
"Within about 15 minutes the whole town was engulfed in flame," Mayor Polderman told the BBC.
"People basically just grabbed their pets, grabbed their keys and got into their car and fled."
"You can't even comprehend it," Lytton evacuee Edith Loring-Kuhanga told CBC Radio. "Our entire town is gone.".
The population of the village municipality as of the 2016 census was 249,with another 1,700 in the immediate area living in rural areas and on reserves of the neighbouring six Nlaka'pamux communities.
Climate change increases wildfire risk and also leads to more frequent and intense heatwaves.