Five years after the Lytton Creek fire tore through the Village of Lytton, longtime resident and first-term mayor Denise O’Connor expresses frustration about the slow pace of recovery but sees multiple signs of progress.
On June 29, 2021, much of British Columbia was in the grip of a heat dome that saw temperature records shattered. On that day, Lytton recorded the highest temperature ever seen in Canada: 49.6 C.
The next day, with temperatures falling to a comparatively mild 39 C, a fire — the cause of which has still not been officially determined — began in the late afternoon. Whipped by high winds, it engulfed the small town in a matter of minutes before spreading to the neighbouring Lytton First Nation (LFN) and surrounding electoral area.
Residents fled with little more than the clothes on their backs. Two people were tragically killed when they sheltered on their property in Lytton; those who left were dispersed throughout the region.
The scale of the disaster was not immediately apparent, but soon the grim reality became clear. Homes and properties were destroyed, and livestock and pets killed, in LFN and the regional district, but the Village of Lytton bore the brunt of the losses, with 90 per cent of the homes, businesses, and buildings in the town’s downtown core — including the former elementary school, RCMP detachment, health site, ambulance station, museum, pool, Lytton Chinese Heritage museum, and municipal office — lost.
O’Connor’s home on Fraser Street was one of the many houses destroyed, but she was able to move into the family home above the town, in an area that had been spared. From there she was able to watch the agonizingly long clean-up of the town, and the months of frustration as property owners dealt with an archaeological assessment process that was long, costly, and left more questions than answers.
From the outside looking in, the lack of progress was baffling. There had been an initial round of optimism in the immediate aftermath of the fire, once people took stock, that Lytton could “build back better.” When no building, better or otherwise, seemed to be happening, O’Connor — a retired teacher and principal with no local government experience — decided to run for mayor in the 2022 municipal election.
“I didn’t understand how governments worked,” she says now. “I thought things could move quickly and rules could be bent. I thought that an unprecedented situation could have an unprecedented response, but there were still blue fences everywhere.”
Once she was inside government, O’Connor says she began to realize that when legislation is set it has to be followed; there could be no bending of the rules to accommodate the unique situation Lytton found itself in. The province’s legislation decreed that the local government needed to take the lead with rebuilding, even though Lytton had none of the resources, staff, capacity, or expertise to do that.
“I think back to shortly after the fire, when a number of us as residents reached out to say to the province ‘What are you doing to help village council in Lytton?’” says O’Connor. “And the response was ‘We are helping them.’ The model was community-led recovery, which we didn’t fully understand, and that was the legislation.”
The Office of the Auditor General in B.C. launched an investigation into the province’s role in Lytton’s recovery, and the report which came out in March 2026 was critical of Victoria’s “hands off” approach. It noted the need for changed legislation that would enable the province to step in following disasters such as what happened in Lytton, and made recommendations about what the province should do if it ever found itself in a similar situation.
“When the report came out one recommendation was for the province to assess the community to see if it had the capacity to lead its own recovery,” says O’Connor. “We cheered and said yes, that’s exactly what they need to do, because we don’t feel they did this.”
The auditor general’s recommendations — nearly five years after the fire — came too late to help the town whose experience prompted the report and its recommendations in the first place.
“I’d learned that when legislation is set it has to be followed, so things moved a lot slower than I ever anticipated they would,” says O’Connor. “I believe that the work is a lot slower than what five years [after the fire] should look like.
“Saying that, though, until three years ago there was still a State of Local Emergency in place [it was lifted in June 2023]. When I look at what’s been done in the last three years it looks a little bit better.”
Twenty homes have been rebuilt, meaning there are once again people living in downtown Lytton. The Lytton Chinese Heritage Museum was rebuilt by its owners, filled with more artifacts, and reopened in spring 2025, almost exactly eight years after the first museum opened.
Lytton’s branch of the Royal Canadian Legion — which had just undergone extensive renovations when the fire happened — has been rebuilt, and is scheduled to open in fall 2026. Major projects to replace the village’s aging water and sewer infrastructure are well under way. And on June 1, ground was broken for a new two-storey municipal building, on the site at the corner of 4th and Main Streets where the old one had been.
“We’ve got shovels in the ground,” says O’Connor. “We done the archaeological assessment, done the prep work for the site, and the service trenches have been dug.”
The ground floor will be a welcome and visitor centre, and contain two spaces with separate outside entrances that can be leased out. The second floor will contain the municipal office, and O’Connor says the hope is to have the building finished in a year.
The lack of other services, five years after the fire, is coming under increasing scrutiny. The RCMP detachment has returned, but is housed in a temporary trailer on leased land downtown. The ambulance station has not returned. The post office and a bank are housed in trailers located several miles from the downtown core. Interior Health has opened a primary care centre in a trailer at the same site, which is open Monday through Friday, but has not released any plan or timeline for the return of more extensive health care services, similar to what the community had before the fire, to the downtown, where they once were.
Nor have any businesses returned. A small grocery store has opened on LFN land, but the town’s main grocery store has not been rebuilt, despite hopes that it would be by now. There are no restaurants or coffee shops, no hotels, no liquor store or pharmacy, no gift shops: none of the businesses that served not only Lytton — with its 2021 census population of 275 people — but also the many hundreds of people in the surrounding regional district and First Nations. The closest towns with these services are Lillooet and Ashcroft, each an hour or more away along highways that are prone to unexpected closures.
O’Connor understands the frustration, but says that when it comes to getting businesses to return, local government can do very little.
“We advocate for, and support, businesses, but that’s all we can do. That said, there’s often lots happening behind the scenes, slowly, but people don’t see it, so they think nothing’s going on. It’s hard to explain to people.”
O’Connor is also wary of announcing things prematurely, having seen too many plans not come to fruition. “I hate to announce things until there are shovels in the ground.”
Instead, she points to things like the survival of three buildings at the northern end of town — the church, the parish hall, and a small house — that somehow survived the fire.
“They didn’t burn, which is almost a miracle, and it’s been a blessing for the entire community and surrounding area, because everyone uses the parish hall. The Village of Lytton leases it from the parish, and it’s also available for anyone who would like to book it for Christmas family dinners, birthday parties, weddings, and meetings.
“The farmers’ market is opening soon, which provides some food security, and the Lytton River Festival [held annually in early September] still attracts a lot of people and is very well supported by the community.”
The village is better off for fire equipment than it was before the fire, when it had one truck and one on order. Now they have both trucks, as well as a pumper truck donated by the Seton Portage fire department, a road rescue truck that was donated by the City of Port Moody, and an EOC (Emergency Operations Centre) trailer that can go wherever it’s needed.
There are around 16 firefighters in the department, and although O’Connor says they are always looking for new members, she’s pleased with the make-up of the crew. “We have some young people who have joined, which is very encouraging, and have members from the surrounding area as well as from the village.”
She adds that while the village’s bylaws don’t require people to adhere to FireSmart principles when building, most do so anyway. “People are much more aware about fire, and FireSmart, and we’re seeing that in practice.”
Black Press spoke with O’Connor while the Saw Creek wildfire, which began on June 19, was threatening the town, and had forced the evacuation of the Ponderosa subdivision, which was spared in 2021. By June 23 the evacuations orders and alerts had changed to all clear, but it is a reminder that the community is no stranger to fire.
The village has not organized any formal event for the five-year anniversary of the fire on June 30, allowing people to mark the day — or not — in their own ways. “The people we heard from want to look forward. They don’t want to drum up horrible memories, but we have to remember the two people who perished.”
O’Connor adds that she too is looking forward, but admits she doesn’t have a crystal ball.
“I know that as mayor we were elected to rebuild the town, and that’s what we’re trying to do. There will always be a community here. Who will run it? Who knows. But there has always been a community here, and there always will be.
“We’ve had phenomenal support from everyone in the area who wants to see their town back.”