Four years after the devastating wildfires of 2021, another out-of-control wildfire is burning in Lytton, British Columbia (BC), a city still recovering from the devastating wildfires of 2021. The cause was determined to be an accidental ignition by a police vehicle.
Lytton is a small village in the Thompson-Nicola region in the south-central part of the province, located about 250 km northwest of Vancouver. According to a statement from the RCMP (Federal Police) on July 3, the “Iseman Creek Fire” near Lytton broke out at around 2:20 pm on July 1. It is believed that a malfunction in the equipment of an RCMP trailer caused the right wheel to come off, resulting in a fire in a grass-covered ditch.
Police officers tried to put out the fire with their own extinguishers but were unsuccessful. The trailer truck that caused the fire belonged to the RCMP’s underwater search team, which was returning to Vancouver after a search for a missing person in a nearby lake.
Police described the fire as “extremely unfortunate” and urged caution during the dry bushfire season, when even small things can ignite a major fire.
According to the BC Wildfire Service website, the Isman Creek Fire had grown to 130 hectares and was out of control as of 2:00 pm on July 3. Evacuation orders and warnings were issued for areas along Highway 12 in the Thompson-Nicola region on July 1 because of the fire. Lytton First Nation also issued a widespread evacuation warning, including several reserves east of the Fraser River.
A wildfire that broke out on June 30, 2021, destroyed much of Lytton, killing two people. At the time, a heat dome covered southern BC, including Vancouver, and a maximum temperature of 49.6°C was recorded in Lytton.