Residents of a Canadian village have been ordered to evacuate their houses due to wildfires that started a day after temperatures topped 121 degrees.

According to a news release from the village of Lytton, Mayor Jan Polderman issued the evacuation order late Wednesday. “All residents are advised to leave the community and move to a safer place,” it said.

Lytton, which is located approximately 195 miles east of Vancouver, has a population of 249 residents.

“It’s terrible. The whole city is on fire,” Polderman told CBC News. “It took, like, a full 15 minutes from the first sign of smoke to, all of a sudden, fires everywhere.”
“At the First Nation Band Office, the fire was a wall about three, four feet high coming up to the fence line. I walked through town, and it was just smoke, flames, wires down,” Polderman told Canadian Broadcasting. Told network.

DriveBC, which provides information on driving conditions in the province, is reporting that two wildfires have closed highways north and south of Lytton.

BC Wildfire Service tweeted on Thursday and said that it was responding to the “evolving situation” in Lytton by assisting the village fire service. Accordingly, the nearby town of Merritt has opened a reception center for those evacuated from Lytton. Facebook page.

Temperatures in Lytton climbed to 121 degrees Fahrenheit (49.5 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday, the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada. This was the third consecutive day that records were broken in the region. According to ECCC Weather British Columbia.
There are currently 67 fires burning in British Columbia and 44 of them have started in the past two days, according to BC Wildfire Dashboard.

The province has experienced 450 fires this year, it said. The extreme temperatures have had a devastating effect on the province as British Columbia reported more than 230 deaths since Friday, officials said Tuesday.
The chief coroner of the province called this an “unprecedented time”.

Chief Coroner Lisa LaPointe said in a statement, “Since the start of the heatwave last weekend, the BC Coroner’s Service has experienced a significant increase in deaths where it is suspected that extreme heat may have contributed. “

Source: www.cnn.com