Guest Blog featuring Kathryn Brooks: An Evacuee's Story (Part 1)
The Day My Home Burned Down - June 30th, 2021 DAY 1
By Kathryn Brooks
I worked all day on the mountain at Kanaka on June 30th, 2021. As I was coming home, I stopped at the top of the turn into Lytton at Kumsheen Secondary School to pick up gift bag for my son. One of the parents of the graduation students did some fundraising and made these gift bags for each grad. Included in the bag was an USB with professional photographs pre-grad day, grad day with family and his private, short covid ceremony for family only. Also was a video of him accepting his diploma. Just two weeks early this was filmed and we held a grad BBQ in our backyard at my home on Fraser Street in Lytton. We took special care and attention in the weeks leading up to grad to make the yard look lush, beautiful, and green for his big day. When I got home, I left this large gift bag (I did not look inside and as it was his gift to open) in the back of my SUV, luckily. His diploma wasn’t so lucky as I had put it on top of my fridge the day of his grad when we held the BBQ at my place. The kids live with their dad (Eric) about 2 kms west of Lytton just above highway one. About 3 weeks before grad, they had been put on evacuation alert from the George road fire. At this time, I had loaded all our keepsakes into my SUV, just in case, they were evacuated. We had just returned everything back to their normal place about a week prior to grad. Their dad and I have great co-parenting and the kids would often go back and forth between our homes. Brandon is 17 and Sophie is 14.
When I arrived home about 4:30pm, it was still very hot out. Lytton had just experienced the trifecta of record breaking heat, reaching 49.7 degrees at the peak a couple days before this day. Everything was tinder dry. The day before I had noticed the young trees on Siwash Road (Kanaka) and along highway 1 were burnt from the sun. I took pictures and emailed them to Chief, Zain and our land planner, John Kenney citing results from climate change and how it is affecting our backyard.
“Everything was tinder dry.”
In Lytton, when it is so hot, you keep all the blinds closed. I also had blackout curtains pulled that helped to keep the heat out. I had just finished a phone call with my boyfriend (Sandy) as he works in Lillooet and was on his way home.
Photo: Kathryn’s home on Fraser street, Lytton
Lytton has two main streets, Main Street and Fraser street and are connected between with streets (1st to 8th) and are I lived on Fraser street near the intersection of Fraser and 5th. My neighbours were the Lytton Volunteer Fire Hall and a nurse (Stephanie) that worked at the Health care facility. On the other side of her, was my elderly parents. My dad, 87 and my mom, 85. Both living on their own. My dad mainly used a wheelchair at home and a walker when he went out. Mom uses a cane most of the time. My aunt lived two blocks south of us.
Photo credit: Tourism Lytton Instagram - Main street in Lytton before the wildfire
I had a good view of Main street. Luckily, I peeked out the blinds after my call with Sandy and noticed that I could see smoke coming from the south, up main street. My first thought was that this smoke was from the George Road fire as it had fired back up and was approaching the Villages watershed. The wind in Lytton always blows. Either from the south, summer, or from the north, winter. I have read that the meeting of the two rivers, the Fraser and the Thompson and the Fraser Canyon create this windy climate in Lytton. At about 4:45pm, As I was peeking…I noticed that a couple of the volunteer firefighters were rushing to the firehall. Then I noticed the smoke coming up Fraser street. I went outside and saw that town was quickly becoming consumed by smoke. I could see the big Ponderosa Pine trees to the south fully engulfed in flames and a house near them in full flames. I ran in the house and called my mom. When she answered it was our quickest conversation of my life. “Lytton is on fire! Get out now!” She normally would think I was pulling her leg or argue with me as I often tease her. She hung up and as she will tell you, she heard my voice and knew her and my dad needed to get out now. I tried to call my Aunt. There was no answer. I tried to call Sandy’s son, no answer. His sister, no answer. I tried to call Sandy but he was already out of cell signal area and I then tried Eric, the kids dad, no answer. I frantically called my son, ‘tell you dad Lytton is on fire’ and hung up. I did not remember this call until my son told me days later. I knew they likely wouldn’t be directly impacted as they live south of Lytton and the wind but Eric could assess that.
“Lytton is on fire. Get out now.”
I quickly grabbed a small suitcase from the closet. In this process I knocked moms air humidifier off the shelf and it fell to the floor. I remember thinking ‘I hope it’s not broken’. I started to throw a couple days worth of clothes in it for both myself and Sandy. I grabbed my prescription medication bag and threw that in. Ran to the bathroom and grabbed the toothbrushes, our contact lens containers and a couple small items. I did not grab our prescription eyeglasses that were right there. Sandy’s mom had passed away about a month before and they had just received keepsakes with some of her ashes inside. I grabbed the box with a piece of his mom inside. I ran out of the house as fast as I could. As I was getting in my car, my neighbour, was putting stuff in her jeep. I said to her to hurry as the fire was behind our homes. I saw my mom and dad getting into their vehicles and drove the two blocks to my aunts. Her front door was wide open and the flames were in her backyard. As I got out of the car in front of my Aunt’s, the smoke was so black and when you tried to breathe, it did not provide any oxygen. It chocked me so bad I tried to cover my mouth and nose with my tank top. Hot ash was hitting my arms and chest. Later that night when I finally got to have a shower, I found a burn mark on my tummy and a large chunk of ash in my bra.
Photo: Kathryn’s house after the fire
I started to holler for my aunt to get out, she came to her door. She started to tell me she was with….. and kept pointing behind her and her neighbour, Michelle, came around and said she was with her. I told them they needed to get out as the flames were in my aunt’s backyard. They got in Michelle’s SUV and I got back in mine. I drove around the corner to main street and tried to get access to Highway 1 on the south end of town to go and see if Sandy’s son, Nathanial who lived above the highway on Lytton First Nation Land, had gotten out safely. The road was blocked and I could not get up there. I drove down main street and saw the elders from Spintlum Lodge, the assisted living facility, being loaded into vehicles. I drove by the police station and turned up the road beside it and down the alley. I saw my cousin Marty leaving in his jeep and my friend Rose and her sister getting into a vehicle. I didn’t remember this until a couple weeks after the fire. I then drove back down by my house and the back of the yard was fully engulfed. I decided to drive out on highway 12, towards Lillooet as that was the way Sandy was coming home. A home that would be gone by the time he arrived. When I was driving over the bridge towards G’wsep gas station, I was so relieved to see my mom’s car parked across from the gas station. I did not see my dad’s truck. The Village of Lytton had no official evacuation plan or if they did, it was not shared with taxpayers or residents as everyone scattered in whatever direction they could access. There were no muster points, no official gathering spots, nothing. No one knew what to do except get out as quick as they could. Sandy pulled in next to us a few minutes later and we were told we had to leave in case the fire jumped the river as G’wsep had above ground fuel tanks. We did not know where my dad was. We drove up Highway 12 to Stein Valley School. There were a lot of Lytton people here. Within minutes of arriving there; cell phones went down with no signal. I drove back to the top of the hill above Lytton. It was devastating. The whole town was on fire and tons of thick black smoke billowed towards the north of town. The fire was moving so fast. I prayed that everyone was safe. We went back to Stein Valley school, in shock. People started telling us to head to Lillooet. Mom got in with me and left her car there. Sandy went up the hill to make sure his brothers were leaving 3 mile. Mom and I headed to Lillooet. There was a long caravan of vehicles driving, numbingly, away from our home. I do not think we drove more than about 60km per hour the entire way. I was coughing the whole way as my throat was raw from the black smoke. It stayed like this for about a week after the fire. When we arrived I went straight to the gas station in Lillooet as I was concerned, my fuel was low. Not knowing where we would go, where we would end up. There was also a fire near Lillooet, the west pavilion fire. The line ups to fill up were huge. I used social media, facebook, to send out a request for my dads truck. I received a message about 2 hours later that he was found just north of Lytton by a kind person and was being escorted to Cache Creek. We could locate him there. We left Lillooet about 10:30pm and joined another huge caravan through Marble Canyon to Cache Creek. Most people headed to Kamloops but we went to find my dad in Cache Creek. The managers at the Oasis motel had put him in a room. We told him to wait there until the next morning and we would come get him. We got rooms at the Tumbleweed Motel a couple blocks away. We then started to try to find Sandy’s son and sister and my kids and their dad. He found his sister and she found my kids and their dad still at home. We were very relieved but still worrying about Sandy’s son, Nathanial. About 2am, we located him with the power of social media. We had a long phone conversation with him. We had showers and went to bed about 4am. This was the first night of nightmares. I woke up about 45 minutes later screaming to get out. Other nights, I wake up trying to breathe through the black smoke and can’t catch my breath. Gasping for air that has no oxygen in it. It usually takes me several hours to calm after this.
(To be continued….)
