Part 3 will be available soon.
Part 3 will be available soon.
Our planet at +1.5°C
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Part 3 will be available soon.
Canada's hottest village lives on despite the constant fear of wildfires
Feature'Our planet at +1.5°C' (2/6) Lytton, British Columbia, was consumed by flames in 2021. As the fires have grown ever more destructive, some residents have returned, determined to stay.
It all began on a windy day like this one. Beneath the blazing sun already beating down on Lytton that June, Shirley and Alan Dean warily watched the railway tracks running through the dry grass below their property. The retired couple remembered all too well the day when, in just a matter of minutes, fire devoured nearly the entire small village in British Columbia, located a three-hour drive from Vancouver in western Canada. Four years earlier, on the afternoon of June 30, 2021, the heat was crushing; the day before, the thermometer reached 49.6°C, a record high for the country. The heavy, still air had been swept away by winds rushing violently through the vast canyon where the town was built – a wind typical of what locals call "incineration days."
That day, as she cast a weary glance at a passing train, Shirley let out a loud cry. She had just seen sparks fly from the tracks that run between their house and the Fraser, the wide river that flows several meters below the village. The sparks ignited the dry grass, and a fire immediately raced up the hillside, swallowing the neighboring houses in a matter of minutes. She and her husband rushed to soak the area around their house to protect it, soon joined by a firefighter helicopter dropping water drawn from the river onto their roof. Thanks to their efforts, the old asbestos-covered house remained unscathed, while the rest of the village vanished in a tornado of fire and smoke.
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