Residents of a Lytton that set a Canadian high-temperature record of 49.6 Celsius this week were ordered to evacuate their homes last night due to a wildfire that spread quickly. Mayor Jan Polderman of Lytton issued the order, saying residents and structures were threatened by the blaze in an area where two other fires are already burning. Chief administrative officer Scott Hildebrand of the local regional district says it’s tough finding shelter for people who had to scramble to escape the smoke as some homes were burning. Provincial fire information officer Erica Berg says resources were being sent to the village as quickly as possible. The wildfire situation in BC has escalated quickly this week as hot, dry weather persisted. more than 325 of the fires are believed to have been sparked by people.
Wildfires in the B.C. Interior are going to start affecting how we breathe here in Metro Vancouver. While the modelling shows the prevailing winds in the Interior moving much of the wildfire smoke toward the east, Amy Thai with Metro Vancouver’s Air Quality Team says they do expect the smoke to begin invading the Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland sometime Friday. However, she says at this point, it’s too early to determine how bad it may end up being. And while the South Coast could be shielded from the worst of the smoke, much of the B.C. Interior is expected to be ashtray-like moving into the weekend. He adds the weather and pattern doesn’t bode well, noting there isn’t much rain in the forecast for the Interior. Metro Vancouver is also keeping watch on the fires burning in Northern California, which created major air quality concerns during last year’s fire season.
B-C’s public safety minister says a rewriting of the Emergency Program Act involving wildfires, floods and even COVID-19 will now include heat waves in order to help prevent deaths related to extreme temperatures. Mike Farnworth says municipalities across the province have opened cooling centres, but it may be time to mandate such a response. He says the province will await chief coroner Lisa Lapointe’s recommendations in a report to be released in a couple of months. Farnworth says there have been three heat-related deaths in the past five years, but Lapointe says at least 486 sudden and unexplained deaths have been recorded since Friday, and she expects most of them are related to the unprecedented heat.
A number of people remain unaccounted for, after a wildfire forced the entire village of Lytton to evacuate Wednesday. Residents were forced to drop everything and leave at a moment’s notice as the flames quickly approached, ultimately destroying 90 per cent of the village, burning down the majority of homes and buildings in the community. With many people still missing, residents who haven’t heard from their loved ones are fearing the worst, though the RCMP has so far not confirmed any fatalities. Some have taken to social media in a desperate attempt to connect. In one post, someone is looking for their uncle and aunt, writing “if anyone has any info or have seen them today or heard from them, please let me know.” The Lytton Creek wildfire has destroyed some key infrastructure, including power and telephone lines, making it more difficult for some to reach their relatives and friends. Many of the people forced out by the fire in Lytton have taken shelter in neighboring communities, such as Merritt. The tragedy has mobilized British Columbians across the province, many doing whatever they can to help evacuees, most of whom have lost just about everything. People and businesses have been offering up food and supplies, and some have even opened their homes to those in need. GoFundMe campaigns have also been set up, many of them raising thousands of dollars in just hours, and some surpassing their goals in less than a day.
A permanent mural has been painted on Commercial Drive in Vancouver that reads ‘Every Child Matters’ in large orange block letters. The action was organized by Haida artist Tamara Bell — who’s also behind the memorial at the Vancouver Art Gallery for the 215 children whose remains were found at the former residential school site in Kamloops last month. A GoFundMe has also been set up to collect donations towards to mural. The goal is $4,000. Community members, Indigenous, and allied artists have all put in their work to paint the mural that extends a full city block. Just a few blocks away, there’s a temporary memorial for brothers Frank “Sonny” Williams and Randy “Danse” Williams — both residential school survivors — who passed away within a week of each other.
Police in Victoria are investigating and appealing to the public for information after a statue of Captain James Cook was toppled and thrown into the harbour yesterday. Photos and video posted to social media show a crowd cheering as the statue near B-C’s Legislature was pulled down shortly after 8:30 p-m. Police say there are several suspects in the Canada Day incident. The statue was replaced with a wooden cut out of a red dress _ a symbol representing murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. Its base was smeared with red handprints.
B-C’s chief coroner says the number of sudden deaths over the past week from extreme heat is three times higher than normal. Lisa Lapointe says 719 deaths have been reported to the B-C Coroners Service between June 25th and yesterday. Lapointe says the figure is preliminary and could rise but it’s being released because the heat wave is believed to be a significant contributing factor to the increased number of deaths. But she says the number of deaths reported over the past few days have been on a downward trend and her office is hopeful that will continue.
A gas price analyst says fuel prices hit an all-time high in Vancouver today, while average prices in Canada are up 30 cents since the beginning of the year. Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, says average gas prices in Vancouver reached a dollar-74 today. McTeague says he expects prices to climb even higher as airline travel picks up and the easing of pandemic restrictions increases demand for fuel. The ongoing heat wave in the western part of the continent has also added pressure, with some refineries at lower operating levels.
The federal government is proposing new rules to strengthen the rights of passengers to flight refunds. Published in the Canada Gazette, the detailed proposal comes after most Canadian airlines held back for more than a year on refunds for people who cancelled trips due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most large airlines have now agreed to reimburse customers as part of the conditions for relief packages from Ottawa over the last few months.
BC health officials announced 84 new test-positive COVID-19 cases over the past 48 hours, bringing the total number of recorded cases in the province to 147,705. This includes 49 new cases from June 30 and July 1 and 35 new cases over the past 24 hours. In a written statement, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said that broken down by health region, 21 are in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 36 are in the Fraser Health region, 25 are in the Interior Health region, and two are in the Northern Health Region. There are no new cases in the Island Health Region. There are currently 729 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. Of the active cases, 99 individuals are currently hospitalized, 30 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation. There have been two new COVID-19-related deaths, for a total of 1,756 deaths in British Columbia. To date, 78.7% of all adults 18 and over in BC and 77.5% of those 12 and older have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. In total, 5,124,693 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in BC, 1,526,711 of which are second doses. 145,032 people who tested positive have now recovered.