A wildfire has torn through the small town of Lytton in British Columbia that set new record high temperatures for Canada on three consecutive days this week.
Lytton's roughly 1,000 residents had to abandon their homes with just a few minutes notice on Wednesday evening (local time), after enduring a record high temperature of 49.6 degrees Celsius the day before.
The province's public safety minister, Mike Farnworth, said on Thursday afternoon that most homes and buildings in Lytton had been destroyed and some residents were missing.
The British Columbia Wildfire Service said the Lytton blaze, one of several fires burning in the region, was raging out of control over an area spanning roughly 80 square kilometres.
A "heat dome" across the north-west of the United states and western Canada has been leading to new record temperatures across the region for the past week or so.
Hundreds of deaths from hyperthermia have been reported by authorities in both countries.
David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the heat dome weather phenomenon had been trapping heat and blocking other weather systems from moving in.
Mr Phillips said it was unclear what triggered the dome, but added climate change looked to be a contributor, given the heatwave's duration and extremes.
Lytton city council member Lilliane Graie, on behalf of Mayor Jan Polderman, said in an email that the fire had devastated the town, a village about 153 kilometres north-east of Vancouver.
At least some of the people who fled Lytton came to a recreational centre in Lillooet, a town about 63 kilometres to the north.
John Haugen, a deputy chief with the Lytton First Nation, said leaders were trying to account for members who did not get to Lillooet.
"It's incomprehensible, people are so anxious and worried about what comes next for them," he said, saying the community had suffered tremendous "devastation and loss".
Lytton residents trying to locate loved ones
Rosanna Stamberg said she was trying to track down her son and daughter, Alfred and Marjorie Nelson, who lived about 8 kilometres from the centre of Lytton.
"I don't know which direction they went," she said in a phone interview.
"I don't know if they went down towards Chilliwack. I don't know if they went to Lillooet. I don't know if they went to Spencer's Bridge or Merritt or Kamloops. I have no idea.
"Or if they stayed home."
In a television appearance, British Columbia Premier John Horgan, said: "Three consecutive days of the highest recorded temperature in Canadian history all happened in Lytton this week.
The heat in Lytton set its first national record on Sunday, reaching 45.1C, then set another new high Monday, at 47.9C. After yet another record high Tuesday, the heat eased to 39C on Wednesday.
Officials said that in the previous 24 hours there had been 62 new fires and 29,000 lightning strikes.
The fire near Lytton had grown to about 9,000 hectares.
Mr Horgan, the premier, said he had heard that a train might have started the fire but it was too early to say.
"Lytton has been devastated and it will take an extraordinary amount of effort to get that historic location back to what it was," he said.
'You got to leave'
Edith Loring-Kuhanga, an administrator at the Stein Valley Nlakapamux School, said she and fellow board members had to cut short a Zoom interview with a prospective teacher as the fire burned down their block.
She said she initially did not pay attention to a siren going off outside, but then got a call from a school board member telling her to flee.
"He said, 'I'm down here at the fire and you got to leave, grab whatever you can quickly,'" Ms Loring-Kuhanga recalled.
The wreckage was extensive, she said.
"It was just unbelievable. It was just a nightmare," she said.
"So many community members have lost everything, they just didn't have time."
Roughly 15 kilometres to the south of Lytton, in the First Nations community of Kanaka Bar, Jean McKay said she and her 22-year-old daughter, Deirdre McKay, started to panic as the smell of smoke grew stronger.
"I was still sitting there and wondering what to pack, emotionally walking out my door but thinking 'I'm leaving all this behind.' It's hard. Very hard," Ms McKay said.
There was one memento her daughter couldn't leave behind: "She grabbed my dad's picture off the wall," Ms McKay said.
"I'm telling her, 'We're walking out and this is the home we built forever and that you guys grew up in.' It's harsh."
AP
