B.C’s Public Safety Minister expects many houses and the municipal infrastructure destroyed by a wildfire in Lytton to be rebuilt by this time next year.
Mike Farnworth says that would give displaced residents returning home a sense of their future after two people were killed and much of the village burned to the ground last June 30 during a record-setting heat wave.
Farnworth says the scale and speed of the disaster posed unique challenges, telling NL News it became apparent within a matter of hours the damage was severe.
“I was getting reports from people – or able to get reports from people of what was taking place on the ground from a number of different sources and it was just unbelievable what we were hearing and what we were seeing and what was taking place,” Farnworth said on NL Newsday.
Within half an hour, nearly the entire town had burned, or was burning. The Lytton Village Office among the many pieces of key infrastructure that was lost.
“And that creates even bigger challenges,” Farnworth added. “You need to be working with the community to ensure that they have the capacity and the support from staff that we are able to provide at the province to be able to function – to start that process.”
Lytton residents angered by slow pace of cleanup
The slow pace of cleanup and recovery remains a source of anger – with much of the work only recently getting started.
Tricia Thorpe, who lives on the outskirts of Lytton, is one of the lucky ones.
She tells NL News they’ve been able to rebuild their home which is within the Thompson Nicola Regional District with no help from government agencies while most other people remain in limbo.
Speaking on the NL Morning News, Thorpe says they’ve rebuilt with help from friends and strangers after being left to their own devices.
“We’ve been largely ignored in all of this because we’re neither Lytton First Nations or the village and yet because of that we’ve been able to succeed and that’s kind of sad because those things are in place to help people,” she said.
Thorpe says she feels for friends of theirs who have been forced to stay away from their homes, adding her and her husband “feel guilty” they’ve been able to move forward when others have not.
“The only reason that we’ve been able to do it is because of the community. It hasn’t been because of any government agency or government assistance.”
Jennifer Thoss, who also lost her home last year, says the past 12 months have been “incredibly frustrating.”
“We still have the state of emergency in place and yet there is no sense of emergency,” Thoss said, on the NL Morning News.
Work to remove debris in Lytton got underway in March, almost nine months after the fire. And while the goal is to get the village cleaned up by September so residents can begin the rebuilding process, Thoss doesn’t think it will happen.
“Timelines mean nothing,” she said. “They’ve been broken over and over and over again as have promises. I have absolutely no confidence that the recovery team and the mayor and council can stick to this timeline.”
Farnworth says he understands the frustration of the slow pace of cleanup and recovery – but notes it is rare that all of a communities vital infrastructure is wiped out.
“I don’t think any of us had experience in terms of working with the community that has been completely devastated,” he said.
“A lot of times a community is impacted, it can be be severely, but their municipal infrastructure, their community infrastructure is still intact and it allows for a faster recovery. But in the case of Lytton, all of that is gone.”
He also said the floods and mudslides from the so-called “atmospheric river” in November were other examples of natural disasters that require much longer, and more comprehensive government assistance.
Farnworth: Lytton Rebuild has been complex
Farnworth notes it has been a “complex” rebuild because of the archaeological significance of the village of Lytton which experts believe was occupied by Indigenous People about 10,000 years ago. That, he says, has added to the complex rebuild as every resident will need to get a permit costing about $10,000.
The BC Government is picking up that cost irrespective of whether people had insurance or not.
We know that for people waiting to get back to their properties and to rebuild their homes and lives, the recovery process can’t move fast enough,” Farnworth said. “What I want people to know is we are committed to rebuilding. We are working very hard with the council, with the First Nations, to rebuild it.”
A report by the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction concluded that the fire could not have been stopped, even with an area-wide emergency response. It says scientists found the root cause of the fire was “easily ignitable structures and homes, and not just a wildfire problem.”
The federal government has announced $77-million in funding to help rebuild Lytton into a fire-resistant and energy-efficient community. That is on top of the $49 million announced by the provincial government to help with remediation and rebuilding of Lytton.
“While there is still a lot of work ahead of us, over the past year, the Province and the federal government have worked together under the leadership of the Village of Lytton and the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council to make significant progress toward rebuilding,” Farnworth and Premier John Horgan said, in a statement.
“This has been a partnership effort since day one, and we will keep moving forward together to address challenges and ensure the community has the foundation in place for people, businesses and leadership to rebuild as soon as possible.”
Private event commemorating one-year anniversary
A number of Lytton residents are commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Lytton Creek Fire at a private event today.
“I think it’s part of the healing process that each and every one of us is going to,” Bryon Spinks, who also lost his home, said. “We wanted to commemorate June 30 and remember it as a period in our lives that had a very big impact on everyone that lives in Lytton.”
“This is not a homecoming event by any means. I think we’ve been grieving for the last year. All of our people have been impacted but we’re here to stay and we’re here to rebuild our community.”
The June 30 event will also include the burial of a time capsule created by students at the Stein Valley Nlakapamux School and community members. It is set to be opened in 30 years.
“We recognize that there are many of our people who are in the same situation and so, it is quite a sensitive time for us thinking that we have come a year and yet for many of us, it still as if it were July 1,” Edith Loring-Kuhanga, the Stein Valley Nlakapamux School Administrator who also lost a home in downtown Lytton said.
Earlier this month, Lytton Mayor Jan Polderman said it could take the better part of a decade to fully rebuild the village, pointing to other fire-ravaged communities like Slave Lake and Fort McMurray in Alberta, and Paradise, California.
“Generally speaking, you’re looking at a four- to eight-year timeline to have a community rebuilt,” Polderman said.
– With files from Abby Zieverink, Bill Cowen, Brett Mineer, Jeff Andreas, and The Canadian Press