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The Saw Creek wildfire is seen in this photo of south of Lytton, B.C., on Friday. Some residents have been told to evacuate.HO/The Canadian Press
Some residents in Lytton, B.C., have been told to evacuate as a wildfire threatens the rural village, a community nearly wiped off the map by flames five years ago this month.
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 B.C. wildfire says Saturday morning its crews are battling a fire about three kilometres south of Lytton with a moderate rate of spread and occasional candling along its perimeter.
That appears to be an improvement over Friday night, when the service described it as a “highly to extremely vigorous surface fire with an organized crown.”
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Dozens of firefighters have been assigned to the blaze with aerial support and structure protection crews also responding.
Updates from emergency officials with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District say an evacuation order is now in effect for 47 addressed properties in the Village of Lytton, with 168 other addresses also under evacuation alerts.
The flames of the Saw Creek wildfire have also forced the closure of Highway one for 116 kilometres, between Boston Bar and Cache Creek.
The BC Wildfire Service says the fire, likely human-caused, has already grown to roughly two square kilometres and will likely continue to spread because of hot, dry conditions.
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The Lytton First Nation has also issued an evacuation alert for some of its residents.
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.