Small Town Week, Episode 3: One B.C. town’s struggle to rise from the ashes

(This is the third episode of Small Town Week, a five-part series in which we examine big problems facing small communities.)

In today’s Big Story Podcast, with Canada having its worst wildfire season on record, people across the country are waking up to the reality of what it’s like to live with these natural disasters. But for many communities, the dangers of wildfire season have long been felt and understood.

Perhaps few communities understand this reality better than Lytton, B.C., which was burned to the ground in 2021 after a wildfire. The town and the province pledged at the time that they would rebuild, but two years later, the work has barely begun.

Tyler Olsen, editor and reporter at the Fraser Valley Current, says Lytton residents received their insurance proceeds and rebuilt their lives elsewhere, as the rebuilding process did not seem promising. “It’s like any community, in where every person has a slightly different life and future that they see for themselves, and for some they can wait, and for many they can’t,” says Olsen.

Does Lytton’s fate represent a failure, or simple reality? Should the town, which holds the record for being the hottest place in Canada, be rebuilt on the same spot? Is it smart to build in an area vulnerable to these types of fires? And what happened to Lytton, and its people when the media moved on to other fires and new climate disasters?

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