One year after Lytton disaster, B.C. residents are ‘very concerned about wildfires’, poll says

Thursday is the one-year anniversary of the tragic wildfire that destroyed the majority of Lytton, and polling shows British Columbians are worried about future fires.

Senior Vice President Jim Mandeville with First Onsite said a poll done by his organization shows a high amount of people are concerned about more wildfires.

“What we found, out of the sampling of 200 B.C. residents, is that over 85 per cent are very concerned about wildfires, which is leading the country by a very wide margin,” Mandeville says.

Mandeville said that people are also concerned about flooding, saying “82 per cent of those people are also extremely concerned about flooding damage.”

“After many years of these events being treated, like surprises, that the general population [has] sort of woken up to the threat of wildfires and flooding in their communities. And this is now a very pressing concern and very front of mind for a lot of BC residents,” he adds.

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Mandeville says some lessons can be learned from the tragic wildfire that burned Lytton down.

“We’re talking about using more advanced construction techniques and materials. So these are building materials that are fire-resistant. It’s construction techniques that minimize the ability for flying sparks and embers to get into places like your attic or your gutters. It’s fire smart landscaping, like keeping combustible materials at least three meters away from your house.”

“The days of putting wood chips all the way around the foundation — that has to go.”

He says if changes aren’t made, all the rebuilding efforts won’t make much difference.

“As we rebuild communities like Lytton, all we’re doing is putting a great deal of time and effort into the repair, just for it to be susceptible to happen again,” he explains.

“If we’re rebuilding these places, and we’re building new and rebuilding closer to the boreal forest, we need to pay attention to these techniques and adopt as many of these practices as we can,” he added.

“So that in the future when a wildfire does come close to where we live and where we work, that we’re not so susceptible to this sort of widespread damage,” he said.