Nearly 50 households in Lytton, British Columbia, have been told to evacuate as a wildfire threatens their rural village, a community nearly wiped off the map by a climate change-induced wildfire five years ago this month.
The Lytton First Nation has also issued an evacuation alert for some of its residents.
Updates from emergency officials with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District said an evacuation order was in effect for 47 addresses in the Village of Lytton, with 168 others under evacuation alerts. The regional district declared a state of emergency in Lytton and Blue Sky County, and evacuation orders and alerts have also been issued in the area.
The Saw Creek wildfire was discovered Friday about three kilometres south of Lytton and was measured at six square kilometres as of Saturday afternoon.
The B.C. Wildfire Service said Saturday morning the fire, which likely had human activity as its direct cause, showed a moderate rate of spread and occasional candling along its perimeter. That appeared to be an improvement over Friday night, when the service described it as a “highly to extremely vigorous surface fire with an organized crown.”
“Goddamnit,” archaeologist and anthropologist Joanne Hammond wrote on Bluesky. “I left Lytton a couple of hours ago after a smoking hot dry week that sucked the remaining moisture out of everything. Coming up on five years since the town was destroyed by wildfire and it’s only getting worse.”
“Five years ago, B.C. was about to experience ‘hydrological whiplash’,” added transportation planner Eric Doherty. “The June heat dome killed over 600, and a resulting wildfire burned Lytton to the ground. Then came November’s floods. The primary cause? Burning fossil fuels like methane gas (LNG)—and solar is now cheaper.”
Judith Urquhart told The Canadian Press she’s doing what she has to do to remain focused and prepare for the possibility that a wildfire could force her to evacuate, five years after her home was destroyed by the previous blaze, along with most of the community and the nearby Lytton First Nation.
Urquhart and her husband rebuilt their home. Now it’s one of the more than 150 properties under evacuation alert. Five years after being devastated, she said the community has been “trained” with help from the province with the knowledge it needs to be prepared for another emergency.
“We know that you have to be careful living here, but other people have had a very traumatic response,” she said. “For us, we just look at it as you have to keep focused, you have to put your own emergency plans in place.”
She told CP said it was “not a good feeling” when the power went out for several hours on Friday before provincial utility BC Hydro got it restored.
She said crews came by around 10 p.m. Friday to tell residents what was going on and gather information about how many people lived in the house, in the event they were ordered to leave.
Urquhart has a list of critical items to take with her if she has to evacuate and said she’s grateful for everyone working during the emergency.
“For all the first responders… the training in the last five years, the province, the federal government, who put money into the whole province for response to these fires,” she said.
“And people will say that’s not enough, but they’ve had a long way from zero to what we’re seeing today.”
Dozens of firefighters have been assigned to the blaze with aerial support and structure protection crews also responding.
The flames of the Saw Creek wildfire have also forced the closure of Highway 1 for 116 kilometres between Boston Bar and Cache Creek.
On June 30, 2021, one day after Lytton recorded a Canadian temperature record of 49.6°C, a wildfire swept through the village, killing two people and levelling almost the entire community.
Then-premier John Horgan and two of his cabinet ministers were flown over the devastated community days later where he said there was “literally nothing left.”
Despite more than $140 million in federal and provincial funding, the recovery has been slow, with only a few dozen homes rebuilt. There are currently about 75 residents in the village, which had a population of 210 before the 2021 fire.
Less than a week ago, The Canadian Press published a deep dive leading up to the fifth anniversary of the 2021 wildfire, in which Mayor Denise O’Connor said the town still looked “pretty empty” apart from about 75 homes and a handful of other buildings.
There are plans for major infrastructure, including a $26-million community hub, CP reported. But for now there’s no grocery store, no playground, and the health centre, bank, and post office are in temporary facilities.
Still, O’Connor pointed to progress like ongoing sewer upgrades and planters along Lytton’s streets.
“Some people say I’m too positive sometimes, but, you know, if we start dwelling on the negative, we’re not going to rebuild our town,” she said.
The scant progress is not for a lack of funding. The federal and provincial governments have committed more than $144 million, or about $1.9 million for each of Lytton’s current residents.
However, an investigation by The Canadian Press, based on documents and community sources, revealed a contentious recovery process that has unfolded since the 2021 fire.
Critics contrast the skyrocketing costs with what they see as a lack of progress, and point to a series of developments that trouble them. The list includes:
• Hiring of highly paid staff who live in Atlantic Canada, by the village’s Halifax-based chief administrative officer;
• Payment of almost $230,000 to a charitable disaster response group that promotes its services as free;
• The firing of the chief administrative officer at the time of the blaze, who was later sued for allegedly stealing municipal funds.
CP has the details here.
Most segments of this report were first published by The Canadian Press between June 14 and 19, 2026.
