Wildfire: The Day Lytton Burned

Episode 426: On June 29th, 2021, Lytton, British Columbia, recorded the highest air temperature in Canadian history: 49.6 degrees Celsius. The next day, the town burned to the ground in under two hours, killing two people and destroying more than 150 homes and businesses across the Village of Lytton and the neighbouring Lytton First Nation reserves. Nearly four years later, the cause of the fire remains officially undetermined, the recovery has become its own bureaucratic disaster, and a class-action lawsuit against Canada's two largest railways is still working its way through the BC Supreme Court. This episode tells the story of the heat, the fire, the two people who didn't make it out, and the years-long collapse of the rebuild that followed. Later in the episode, Mike sits down with Tim Conrad of Butterfly Effect Communications to talk crisis communications — what the first hours of a disaster like Lytton demand, and what it takes to keep a fractured, grieving community informed years into a recovery that never seems to end.

Sources:

• An Examination of the Lytton, British Columbia Wildland-Urban Fire Destruction
• Provincial Support for the Village of Lytton's Wildfire Recovery
• Lytton Wildfire | Wikipedia
• B.C. Man Says He Watched in Horror as Lytton Wildfire Claimed the Lives of His Parents | CBC News
• BC Coroners Service Confirms 2 Deaths in Lytton Wildfire | CBC News
• Man Who Lost His Parents in Lytton, B.C., Fire Wants to Go Home | CTV News
• RCMP Investigation Unable to Determine Cause of 2021 Wildfire That Destroyed Most of Lytton, B.C. | CBC News
• Track Cleared for Class-Action Suit 4.5 Years After Wildfire Swallows Most of Lytton | Williams Lake Tribune
• Remembering Lytton, the Town Wiped Out by Wildfire | The Walrus

⠀Guest:

• Butterfly Effect Communications Company Website
• Wildfires, Floods, and Chaos Communications Tim’s Podcast
• Inside an Emergency Operations Centre | Butterfly Effect Communications Video

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices