‘It frustrates everybody here’: 11 homes, 1 business rebuilt since wildfire in Lytton, B.C.

The village of Lytton is rebuilding with new homes and the opening of its first business, four years after wildfire ravaged the community and killed two people.

Alongside the empty lots in the B.C. village of Lytton, there are new homes and a slowly returning sense of community.

“I look around and it’s very comforting to see the same families moving back,” said Jennifer Thoss, who recently moved from an RV to her newly rebuilt home.

“I’ve been staying in a fifth wheel just down the street here. It was a bit rough through the winter with no running water, things froze,” recalled the teacher and Lytton councillor.

She lost her home in June of 2021 when a wildfire destroyed 90 per cent of the village. She had replacement insurance, but many of her neighbours and fellow community members had no insurance, or not enough.

It has been four years since the fire and just 11 homes have occupancy permits, including the newly built home Mayor Denise O’Connor moved into earlier this month.

“It feels really good. Everything is so new. It’s definitely so different from the old house,” O’Connor said.

A handful of items salvaged from the “old house” sit in a special box that hangs on a wall in her home.

“It’s a piece of my history now, and I think that’s important to keep that alive,” she said.

It’s not only homes being rebuilt – the first business has now officially reopened in Lytton, too.

“I’m starting over at 72, so it was a big decision,” said Lorna Fandrich of the Lytton Chinese History Museum.

She said after the museum burned, efforts to sift through the ashes uncovered historical pieces that had survived the flames.

“About 200 pieces, 40 of which were in reasonably good shape,” she said.

The best of the pieces are now back on display. Items too damaged for display fill racks in the basement.

“It was such a grand collection. I don’t think I’d ever be able to replace what we did have here,” she said.

Donations helped restore some of her collection and helped bring the museum back to life, after it was found the original building was under-insured.

“Chinese people, other history groups, individuals, came to me then and they donated just under $150,000 and said, ‘Please replace the building,’” Fandrich explained.

She is eager to see other businesses also reopen, saying change has come slow.

“It frustrates everybody here, I think. There are bureaucratic issues. There are archeology issues. There are issues with the building code,” explained Fandrich.

“People have also had issues with their insurance…it’s been a very long, difficult process,” she added.

Each property faces a mandatory and often costly archeological assessment before rebuilding.

“It’s been hard, the unknowns,” said Thoss. “We’re not able to see the artifacts found on our properties. There’s no way to corroborate or to find out more.”

Thoss said that while returning property owners received grants to help cover archeology costs, the assessments remain a deterrent for newcomers.

“The people that want to purchase property now don’t have access to those same grants, so there’s a lot of unknowns,” she said.

In a statement to CTV News, the Ministry of Forests said that so far “more than 7,000 ancestral remains have been found, along with grave goods and a wide range of artifacts, including tools and ceremonial items.”

Out of respect to the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council, Lytton First Nation, and other impacted Nations, “the province will not speak to the cultural meaning of these discoveries,” it continued.

The statement said Lytton’s rebuilding continues, “with a strong focus on protecting important cultural and archaeological artifacts, as required by the Heritage Conservation Act.”