10 ms·

'Most homes' in Lytton destroyed by catastrophic fire, B.C. minister says

132 points by gentleman11 5y ago

jhayward 5y ago
The all-time high temperature record for Canada was set in Lytton on 3 successive days Sun-Tue (46.6ºC, 47.5ºC, 49.5ºC). On the 4th day, it burned to the ground.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dougmwne 5y ago
  Technically, it hit a temperature record on the 4th day as well. If this isn't the most bizarre symbol of climate change, I don't know what else would be.
  - alexgmcm 5y ago
    The Australian bush fires? The Texas storm? There's so many to choose from!
    - kolanos 5y ago
      Or the Medieval Warm Period? [0] Or the Little Ice Age? [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    It's isn't necessary a symbol of climate change. You need to perform deeper statistical analysis to establish that causation. For instance, you need to create separation from a rare but possible event even without climate change, versus a causation strictly involving climate change. There were record days in the past as well, and they were not attributed to particular causes. Evidence of causation requires much more rigorous proof and thoughtful analysis.
    - dougmwne 5y ago
      Speaking of thoughtful analyses, a symbol is something that stands in for something else, either by convention or to embody something complex and esoteric into something simple and relatable. A town hitting 3 country-wide temperature records in the world's second largest country, then burning down may not be evidence of climate change, but it can certainly be symbolic of climate change. Symbols are the critical foundation of human understanding, cognition and communication, so having a powerful and appropriate symbol of a complex issue could be even better than one more data point.
mooneater 5y ago
"I noticed some white smoke at the south end of town and within 15 to 20 minutes, the whole town was engulfed in flame." -- town mayor That is terrifying speed.
- loopz 5y ago
  Firestorms will be the new normal as temperatures accellerate. https://www.co2levels.org https://www.co2levels.org
- Syonyk 5y ago
  Strong winds fan flames in a hurry, but for a typical forest fire, the problem isn't actually the flame front - it's the firebrands (burning pieces of wood tossed ahead of the fire by the wind). They get lofted by the rising hot air, catch a breeze, and extend typically half a mile or more in front of the actual flame front. So you end up with a ton of spot fires that, if not addressed, do things like "light the whole town on fire." Buildings burning create a ton more of these, and you're screwed. If you look at the aftermath, you're almost certain to see buildings mostly burned from the top down, with intact landscaping around them - that's a strong sign that the spread was firebrand based. Unfortunately, if you've not built for it ahead of time (and sometimes even if you have), there's literally nothing you can do when the fire hits in high winds. I mostly deal with grass fires locally, and even those can get going in a hurry with a strong wind. Of course, the only days they ever seem to burn is in a strong wind...
  - monkeybutton 5y ago
    Here's a terrifying example from fort McMurray where it's raining embers: https://youtu.be/7E_OLgC4nV0 https://youtu.be/7E_OLgC4nV0
    - Syonyk 5y ago
      Yeah, that's a great example. You can see some spot fires starting in a few places in the video along the side of the road. If you know what you're doing, have backup power, and some water storage, someone staying behind to deal with the spot fires before they grow can have a large impact on the survivability of a house or neighborhood. If you're somewhere prone to wildfires and you have a pool (and are the sort to stay behind...), a good propane powered pump and enough hose to run good lines around the house will have a huge impact - and even if you don't have that, a few thousand gallons of water storage isn't that expensive (compared to a house). If you've got a properly set up wildfire rated house without much debris around it, a good Class A rated roof, and some water, you can do a lot. Of course, you can always roll a 1, and certain houses (shake roof) will simply go up like a candle in an ember storm like this, but in that situation, I'm not sure a car stuck in traffic is the better option. Houses can handle an awful lot of radiant heat, and they'll survive perfectly fine a radiant heat flux far beyond what a human can tolerate. You just can't let direct flame impinge on them for very long before it spreads.
lenova 5y ago
Climate change literally just burnt down a town. It's here folks, the moment they warned us about for a generation.
- biesnecker 5y ago
  It's been here. The Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, CA, was if not caused by climate change at least made worse by it.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Why are you assuming this is climate change driven? I am seeing this on a lot of social media comments and in news articles, but scientists have not proven a link to climate change in any statistically trustworthy manner. Cliff Mass, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington and chief scientist of the Northwest Modeling Consortium mentioned in his recent blog posts that the heat wave was a perfect storm of factors like compression from sinking air coming off the West slopes of the Cascades. He also specifically noted (https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/06/incredible-temperatures-are-being.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/06/incredible-temperatur...): > Is global warming contributing to this heatwave? The answer is certainly yes. Would we have had a record heatwave without global warming. The answer is yes as well. He also said in the same article: > Let me end with the golden rule of temperature extremes: the bigger the temperature extreme the SMALLER the contribution of global warming. Think about that. I think this event has yet to be fully explored and scientifically analyzed, but currently it looks like this is a rare 1 in 1000 years event that could have occurred with or without climate change. In the past we would have written this event off as an anomaly, a record setting event that stands out but isn't the norm. But now it seems like people are very quick to shout 'climate change' for literally any kind of weather anomaly and I am trying to understand why.
  - Judgmentality 5y ago
    > But now it seems like people are very quick to shout 'climate change' for literally any kind of weather anomaly and I am trying to understand why. I admittedly haven't done a statistical analysis, but aren't these "anomalies" happening significantly more frequently than before?
rhacker 5y ago
The smoke is heading north otherwise a bunch of bay area'ns would be complaining about smoke in this thread.
mwest217 5y ago
I used to live around 30 minutes north of Lytton, and fire seasons were always pretty substantial. It’s still shocking to see the town being burned.
- cf100clunk 5y ago
  BC Parks has a campground called Skihist right near where you describe, and in my stops there on long summer trips I could seldom sleep because of the heat there in the "rain shadow" area of the province that never gets the moist Pacific air typical of the Vancouver area. Temperature highs in the mid or upper 30s were often seen in the high summer, but never in the high 40s. What a glum, sombre Canada Day owing to this devastation in Lytton, the findings at residential school sites, the lingering effects of COVID... so much tragedy in 2021.
tyleo 5y ago
For those who missed the start of this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687297
lacksconfidence 5y ago
I had a hard time getting an idea of the size of the fire or the town from the article. As an external point of reference, the population is reported as 249 in 2016.
- Syonyk 5y ago
  https://goo.gl/maps/f8E3w4rTBNbjVi7z7 https://goo.gl/maps/f8E3w4rTBNbjVi7z7 It's about a dozen or so square blocks, pretty typical for small towns along a river.
- chx 5y ago
  That's the town itself, the area is surrounded by Indian Reserves and I can't find any news how they fared. This was another First Nations tragedy, as if they didn't suffer enough already.
elihu 5y ago
They were on HN just yesterday on account of the heat wave: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687297 > Canada broke its temperature record for a third straight day on Tuesday - 49.6C (121.3F) in Lytton, British Columbia.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  For those not familiar with the specifics of this event in the Pacific Northwest, the three days were all part of the same event, a heat dome caused by a rare combination of factors leading to air compression, preventing heat dispersion. That is, the reason there were three straight days of high temperatures is because they were part of the same weather event, not because of a broader sustained rise in temperatures this season.
  - loopz 5y ago
    This is true, but climate extremes make these events more likely than before too. It's not a gradual shift, but wilder swings. So, signs of things to come, even if the overall change takes time.
    - akiselev 5y ago
      People have very short memories - the wild swings are in full effect. Four years ago almost to the day dozens of wildfires started all over BC thanks to a series of heat waves, forcing a record 65,000 people to evacuate and burning over 1% of the entire province. I moved to Seattle in August of that year and it wasn't until September that all the smoke cleared up. Literally moved a thousand miles north of California fire country and stepped into.... Pacific Northwest fire country.
      - cf100clunk 5y ago
        Seattle and Vancouver (and their surrounding areas) both have quadruple threats for natural disasters: earthquakes connected to a subduction zone, live and dormant volcanoes, tsunamis, and wildfires. But apart from those, they are wonderful places.
jacquesm 5y ago
Climate change isn't the direct cause here but a contributing factor. Temperatures like seen there in the last couple of days will dry things out to the point that and extremely sensitive environment develops, a single cigarette tossed un-carefully has the potential to cause something like this. Now obviously those things will also happen during 'normal' times (for whatever that means), but as these things happen more often there will be more opportunities for consequences such as these to materialize. Let's hope it does not spread by wind because that whole region is a tinderbox right now. Friends in BC say they are doing well all things considered but would love for normality to be restored and were acutely aware of the fire risks involved. That under those circumstances a fire did in fact happen should give everybody pause, Canadians are not exactly stupid when it comes to fire prevention.
riskable 5y ago
Remember folks: BLM doesn't, "burn cities to the ground." Climate change does.
- akiselev 5y ago
  I don't think the Bureau of Land Management even operates in Canada
  - riskable 5y ago
    Was making a reference to the common (ridiculous) refrain from right wing media that Black Lives Matter protests burned various cities "to the ground". As in, "they burned Portland to the ground!"
    - psychedelican 5y ago
      No they've just burned restaurants, a couple blocks, convenience stores, a few Target's, and a couple police stations.
doggodaddo78 5y ago
Having been through the Paradise CA Camp Fire evac in 2018, that sucks. Climate change has to be tackled seriously ASAP. No half measures. End FFs and meat agriculture; do SRM and oceanic bio CCS. The externality costs of not doing are infinite and and also in terms of the planet and billions of lives.
gentleman11 5y ago
CBC renamed the article. Thanks for updating

132 points by gentleman11 5y ago

The all-time high temperature record for Canada was set in Lytton on 3 successive days Sun-Tue (46.6ºC, 47.5ºC, 49.5ºC). On the 4th day, it burned to the ground.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dougmwne 5y ago
Technically, it hit a temperature record on the 4th day as well. If this isn't the most bizarre symbol of climate change, I don't know what else would be.
- alexgmcm 5y ago
  The Australian bush fires? The Texas storm? There's so many to choose from!
  - kolanos 5y ago
    Or the Medieval Warm Period? [0] Or the Little Ice Age? [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  It's isn't necessary a symbol of climate change. You need to perform deeper statistical analysis to establish that causation. For instance, you need to create separation from a rare but possible event even without climate change, versus a causation strictly involving climate change. There were record days in the past as well, and they were not attributed to particular causes. Evidence of causation requires much more rigorous proof and thoughtful analysis.
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    Speaking of thoughtful analyses, a symbol is something that stands in for something else, either by convention or to embody something complex and esoteric into something simple and relatable. A town hitting 3 country-wide temperature records in the world's second largest country, then burning down may not be evidence of climate change, but it can certainly be symbolic of climate change. Symbols are the critical foundation of human understanding, cognition and communication, so having a powerful and appropriate symbol of a complex issue could be even better than one more data point.

mooneater 5y ago

"I noticed some white smoke at the south end of town and within 15 to 20 minutes, the whole town was engulfed in flame." -- town mayor That is terrifying speed.

loopz 5y ago
Firestorms will be the new normal as temperatures accellerate. https://www.co2levels.org https://www.co2levels.org
Syonyk 5y ago
Strong winds fan flames in a hurry, but for a typical forest fire, the problem isn't actually the flame front - it's the firebrands (burning pieces of wood tossed ahead of the fire by the wind). They get lofted by the rising hot air, catch a breeze, and extend typically half a mile or more in front of the actual flame front. So you end up with a ton of spot fires that, if not addressed, do things like "light the whole town on fire." Buildings burning create a ton more of these, and you're screwed. If you look at the aftermath, you're almost certain to see buildings mostly burned from the top down, with intact landscaping around them - that's a strong sign that the spread was firebrand based. Unfortunately, if you've not built for it ahead of time (and sometimes even if you have), there's literally nothing you can do when the fire hits in high winds. I mostly deal with grass fires locally, and even those can get going in a hurry with a strong wind. Of course, the only days they ever seem to burn is in a strong wind...
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  Here's a terrifying example from fort McMurray where it's raining embers: https://youtu.be/7E_OLgC4nV0 https://youtu.be/7E_OLgC4nV0
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    Yeah, that's a great example. You can see some spot fires starting in a few places in the video along the side of the road. If you know what you're doing, have backup power, and some water storage, someone staying behind to deal with the spot fires before they grow can have a large impact on the survivability of a house or neighborhood. If you're somewhere prone to wildfires and you have a pool (and are the sort to stay behind...), a good propane powered pump and enough hose to run good lines around the house will have a huge impact - and even if you don't have that, a few thousand gallons of water storage isn't that expensive (compared to a house). If you've got a properly set up wildfire rated house without much debris around it, a good Class A rated roof, and some water, you can do a lot. Of course, you can always roll a 1, and certain houses (shake roof) will simply go up like a candle in an ember storm like this, but in that situation, I'm not sure a car stuck in traffic is the better option. Houses can handle an awful lot of radiant heat, and they'll survive perfectly fine a radiant heat flux far beyond what a human can tolerate. You just can't let direct flame impinge on them for very long before it spreads.

lenova 5y ago

Climate change literally just burnt down a town. It's here folks, the moment they warned us about for a generation.

biesnecker 5y ago
It's been here. The Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, CA, was if not caused by climate change at least made worse by it.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Why are you assuming this is climate change driven? I am seeing this on a lot of social media comments and in news articles, but scientists have not proven a link to climate change in any statistically trustworthy manner. Cliff Mass, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington and chief scientist of the Northwest Modeling Consortium mentioned in his recent blog posts that the heat wave was a perfect storm of factors like compression from sinking air coming off the West slopes of the Cascades. He also specifically noted (https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/06/incredible-temperatures-are-being.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/06/incredible-temperatur...): > Is global warming contributing to this heatwave? The answer is certainly yes. Would we have had a record heatwave without global warming. The answer is yes as well. He also said in the same article: > Let me end with the golden rule of temperature extremes: the bigger the temperature extreme the SMALLER the contribution of global warming. Think about that. I think this event has yet to be fully explored and scientifically analyzed, but currently it looks like this is a rare 1 in 1000 years event that could have occurred with or without climate change. In the past we would have written this event off as an anomaly, a record setting event that stands out but isn't the norm. But now it seems like people are very quick to shout 'climate change' for literally any kind of weather anomaly and I am trying to understand why.
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  > But now it seems like people are very quick to shout 'climate change' for literally any kind of weather anomaly and I am trying to understand why. I admittedly haven't done a statistical analysis, but aren't these "anomalies" happening significantly more frequently than before?

rhacker 5y ago

The smoke is heading north otherwise a bunch of bay area'ns would be complaining about smoke in this thread.

mwest217 5y ago

I used to live around 30 minutes north of Lytton, and fire seasons were always pretty substantial. It’s still shocking to see the town being burned.

cf100clunk 5y ago
BC Parks has a campground called Skihist right near where you describe, and in my stops there on long summer trips I could seldom sleep because of the heat there in the "rain shadow" area of the province that never gets the moist Pacific air typical of the Vancouver area. Temperature highs in the mid or upper 30s were often seen in the high summer, but never in the high 40s. What a glum, sombre Canada Day owing to this devastation in Lytton, the findings at residential school sites, the lingering effects of COVID... so much tragedy in 2021.

tyleo 5y ago

For those who missed the start of this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687297

lacksconfidence 5y ago

I had a hard time getting an idea of the size of the fire or the town from the article. As an external point of reference, the population is reported as 249 in 2016.

Syonyk 5y ago
https://goo.gl/maps/f8E3w4rTBNbjVi7z7 https://goo.gl/maps/f8E3w4rTBNbjVi7z7 It's about a dozen or so square blocks, pretty typical for small towns along a river.
chx 5y ago
That's the town itself, the area is surrounded by Indian Reserves and I can't find any news how they fared. This was another First Nations tragedy, as if they didn't suffer enough already.

elihu 5y ago

They were on HN just yesterday on account of the heat wave: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27687297 > Canada broke its temperature record for a third straight day on Tuesday - 49.6C (121.3F) in Lytton, British Columbia.

throwawaysea 5y ago
For those not familiar with the specifics of this event in the Pacific Northwest, the three days were all part of the same event, a heat dome caused by a rare combination of factors leading to air compression, preventing heat dispersion. That is, the reason there were three straight days of high temperatures is because they were part of the same weather event, not because of a broader sustained rise in temperatures this season.
- loopz 5y ago
  This is true, but climate extremes make these events more likely than before too. It's not a gradual shift, but wilder swings. So, signs of things to come, even if the overall change takes time.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    People have very short memories - the wild swings are in full effect. Four years ago almost to the day dozens of wildfires started all over BC thanks to a series of heat waves, forcing a record 65,000 people to evacuate and burning over 1% of the entire province. I moved to Seattle in August of that year and it wasn't until September that all the smoke cleared up. Literally moved a thousand miles north of California fire country and stepped into.... Pacific Northwest fire country.
    - cf100clunk 5y ago
      Seattle and Vancouver (and their surrounding areas) both have quadruple threats for natural disasters: earthquakes connected to a subduction zone, live and dormant volcanoes, tsunamis, and wildfires. But apart from those, they are wonderful places.

jacquesm 5y ago

Climate change isn't the direct cause here but a contributing factor. Temperatures like seen there in the last couple of days will dry things out to the point that and extremely sensitive environment develops, a single cigarette tossed un-carefully has the potential to cause something like this. Now obviously those things will also happen during 'normal' times (for whatever that means), but as these things happen more often there will be more opportunities for consequences such as these to materialize. Let's hope it does not spread by wind because that whole region is a tinderbox right now. Friends in BC say they are doing well all things considered but would love for normality to be restored and were acutely aware of the fire risks involved. That under those circumstances a fire did in fact happen should give everybody pause, Canadians are not exactly stupid when it comes to fire prevention.

riskable 5y ago

Remember folks: BLM doesn't, "burn cities to the ground." Climate change does.

akiselev 5y ago
I don't think the Bureau of Land Management even operates in Canada
- riskable 5y ago
  Was making a reference to the common (ridiculous) refrain from right wing media that Black Lives Matter protests burned various cities "to the ground". As in, "they burned Portland to the ground!"
  - psychedelican 5y ago
    No they've just burned restaurants, a couple blocks, convenience stores, a few Target's, and a couple police stations.

doggodaddo78 5y ago

Having been through the Paradise CA Camp Fire evac in 2018, that sucks. Climate change has to be tackled seriously ASAP. No half measures. End FFs and meat agriculture; do SRM and oceanic bio CCS. The externality costs of not doing are infinite and and also in terms of the planet and billions of lives.

gentleman11 5y ago

CBC renamed the article. Thanks for updating