When the village lost everything, federal and B.C. politicians promised to help rebuild. Today, many displaced residents remain angry and anxious to go home
This article was written by Justine Hunter and was published in the Globe & Mail on June 25, 2024.
The word “Miracle” is hand-lettered above the front door of a tidy bungalow in Lytton. After a wildfire razed the community three years ago, Linda Nixon was one of just three people who were initially allowed to move back. She doesn’t get a lot of visitors.
Along with the rest of the community, Ms. Nixon evacuated the village in June of 2021, taking only her cat. The fire was almost at her door, and all she remembers of the time was her panic.
When she returned months later, she was shocked to find her home virtually unscathed amid the ruins of Lytton.
“We decided to name the house Miracle because that burned down, and that burned down,” she said, pointing in turn to the empty lots on either side of her, where her next-door neighbours once lived. “And here I am.” Her cat was sitting contentedly in the front under the shade of a towering fir tree that, improbably, resisted the fire.
“I miss the people stopping by and saying hi,” she said. “I miss the kids walking by to school.”
Today, the village is getting bigger. A handful of homes have been rebuilt, and new building permits are being issued. But despite provincial and federal politicians’ vows to help build the community back better than ever, progress has proceeded at a snail’s pace.
Part of the delay was owing to the lengthy process of cleaning up the toxins in soil from materials that burned. After the city’s records were destroyed, it had no bylaws to approve anything, which was another hurdle. Then, when ancient artifacts were found, archeologists and monitors from the Nlaka’pamux Nation were brought in to oversee remediation efforts.
But three years with little progress doesn’t line up with the expectations set by the politicians who swooped in to promise assistance, and the town’s former residents are frustrated.
When Ms. Nixon spoke to visitors on an afternoon in May, the wind was whipping up dust in a mostly empty landscape framed by hillsides of blackened trees.
What is here doesn’t add up to a community: There is no coffee shop or grocery store. The community pool is gone, and all that remains of Lytton Elementary School are a retaining wall and concrete steps that lead nowhere. After three years of delays, it is unclear who still wants to come back.
The Lytton Creek fire swept in from all sides during a record heat wave on June 30, 2021. Firefighters didn’t stand a chance against the fast-moving flames, and 90 per cent of the village was destroyed.
The next month, then-premier John Horgan flew over the destruction and promised that his government would help Lytton rebuild. He said the new village would be an example for North America of how to build a fire-smart community. Federal government officials flew in to meet with residents and pledge support as well.
The province’s job was to co-ordinate the disaster response, and then to assist with restoring the village, an act that includes returning evacuees, fixing civic infrastructure and helping businesses rebuild.
This spring, British Columbia’s AuditorGeneral launched a probe into the provincial government’s response, which may provide answers about why a majority of former residents remain displaced.
B.C.’s ruling party, the NDP, initially balked at the audit, but Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma now says she welcomes the process.
Lytton’s mayor, Denise O’Connor, doesn’t expect it to paint a flattering picture for the province. “The municipality has received funds for rebuilding all the infrastructure, including cleanup and that kind of thing,” she said in an interview. “But there’s no money to help people that did not have insurance.” Less than half the community of 250 people was covered by home insurance. Those with insurance will still be out of pocket for additional costs.
Jackie Tegart, the BC United MLA for Fraser-Nicola, pressed for the audit because she believes the province did not serve the people of Lytton well. She estimates the province has spent $40-million, but it’s not clear where the money went. “This is about people’s lives, and we have a responsibility to them to look at how it worked and didn’t work,” she said. “My job was to make sure the people of Lytton
weren’t forgotten.”
Days after the fire, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged his government would help the town rebuild, to help displaced residents. But the money hasn’t flowed yet, the mayor said.
To make matters worse, the village council was advised to apply for a rapid housing initiative grant from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. with the hope of kick-starting reconstruction. In order to qualify, the village administration needed to purchase a suitable property. So Lytton bought an abandoned motel – only to be turned down for the grant. The site remains empty.
There are, however, signs of progress. Over the wind, the sound of excavators and hammers could be heard. Ms. O’Connor secured a building permit in May for her home. “We lived here for 30 years,” she said, standing on her gravel lot on an empty street. “I’m aiming to have Christmas here.”
As she walked through Lytton, pointing out where things used to be, the mayor would not guess how many residents and businesses would return. But she is more hopeful now than at any point in the past three years. The owners of AG Foods have agreed to rebuild, although it is not clear when. The Royal Canadian Legion’s Branch 162 and the Chinese History Museum are preparing to come back. The health clinic will be reconstructed in three to five years. The RCMP say it will be at least eight years before they rebuild the detachment.
“We are just at the beginning,” Ms. O’Connor said.
City Hall is, for the time being, run from the parish hall, where council meetings are held and community gathers. It is part of a small complex of buildings, including St. Barnabas Church, that also evaded the flames. The rectory has been used as a base for a volunteer crew of Mennonites who are building a new home for a former resident who had no insurance.
After fire destroyed the homes next to the parish, ancient human skeletal remains were discovered during the cleanup. The village, which many believed had been here since 1858, had been built on top of an Indigenous community, with signs of occupation going back thousands of years.
“The locals found out after the fire that the whole area is a heritage site,” Ms. O’Connor said.
Through B.C.’s Heritage Conservation Act, private landowners are responsible for avoiding damage to archeological sites through construction activities.
Most of the land has been remediated now. BC Hydro has built new power lines, and water and sewer services are ready for new buildings. “But as we go to rebuilding, homeowners here each have to hire archeologists, at their cost. It’s a sore point for residents,” the mayor said.
Ms. O’Connor only ran for mayor last November because she emerged as a central critic of the pace of reconstruction. She was happily retired as the principal of the Lytton Elementary School.
To get things moving, one of the first acts by the new mayor and council was to scrap a bylaw that would have required new buildings to be built under the Fire-Smart BC code. The cost of enhanced safety features was prohibitive, she argued, and would only prevent people from coming back.
Melissa Michell, a member of the new council, has been a lifelong resident of Lytton, save for these past three years. Her new home has arrived, in pieces. The prefab design was meant to allow for quick construction, but in May, work was at a standstill.
“Once the debris was gone, we thought we could get building,” she said in an interview. But that was before the artifacts were found. She has been quoted $26,000 to pay an archeologist to oversee construction.
Ms. Michell hopes to be in her new home by August. “It finally feels like there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
On the high street in town, another old house stands unmarked by fire. It remains empty, save for a pair of marmots that have taken up residence in the front yard. The marmot population has exploded in the absence of people, and now easily outnumber human residents.
“For a long, long time after the fire, I pictured rebuilding Lytton and it would just be this same little town again,” Ms. O’Connor said. “It took me a long time to to come to the realization that that it’s not going to be the same town.”
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