Retired firefighter refused to leave home to Lytton’s flames
LYTTON, B.C.- After a wildfire ravaged the village of Lytton, B.C. last week, barely anything remains of its buildings, streets and oncebustling community.
A statement issued by the village on Wednesday described how the area’s dry drought conditions and brisk wind allowed the fire to spread with “ferocious speed,” giving residents little time to flee and firefighters scant notice to battle the flames.
Local RCMP hastily evacuated residents; several have sustained injuries, and two residents are confirmed dead, the press release states.
A few buildings in the village survived, but nearly every home in the centre of the town is gone.
When the fire broke out in Lytton, Norman Drynock, a 65-year-old retired firefighter, refused to leave the nearby Nicomen reserve after he was told to evacuate. He stayed back for five days to prepare his house to survive the fire — watching carefully as the smoke and flames approached.
Question: Tell me why you stayed back.
Norman Drynock: I wasn’t fighting that fire off, I was preparing my house. I didn’t want it to burn down. So I stayed to clear off anything that could possibly catch one of those sparks and burn. My sister lived down in Lytton. She sent me a text showing me the flames, and I told her son to get their sprinkler system going. Then a couple of minutes later, they said that they were being evacuated.
I was a firefighter for 17 and a half seasons. So when they came in and said we had to leave, I told them no. Because the fire was like 10 miles away. I just started to go to work, doing everything that I could, putting all my training to the best use that I could with an interface fire, like cleaning the roof off, getting all the stuff off the roof and the gutters and then all the fuels around the house.
Q: What was the situation like at the beginning?
ND: I watched everybody leave, and I watched the houses to see if anybody else was staying to work on their house. I was going to go ask them if we could team up to work together so we could finish the work fast. But there was nobody, and so I thought, well I got to do this myself, and if I have time maybe I can do other yards, but if I don’t, then I’m only going to do my place.
Q: What did you do while on the reserve? What was it like?
ND: I worked during the day because I couldn’t find the batteries for my headlamp, and you’re looking at like 45 to 44 degrees, and you’re drinking lots of water. I lived on trail mix, water and Gatorade for four or five days, cleaning, getting ready for the fire. The constables, they kept on coming and trying to get me to leave, and I told them I can’t, I have to prepare the house.
I have post-traumatic stress disorder. It comes to me through real heavy anxiety attacks. I never had one of those for a couple of years. And when I was there, I think on the second day, I had one, and it felt like a heart attack, and I had all the symptoms. I had no communication out because the phones were gone, so no cell service, no electricity. I just about jumped in my truck and took off.
I was so tired. I didn’t know what day it was.
Q: Did you think about leaving during the initial evacuation?
ND: No. Back when I was a firefighter, we have contingency plans, and then we go by how dangerous is it? What is our escape route? What happens if that escape route is cut off? And it was so far away that I knew that I had time to do work. And I knew I could tell fire behaviour by the smoke.
We have lots and lots of water. We have a river called Nicomen River right where I live, and our water source flows from there. It died because it’s reliant on B.C. Hydro to pump it and their electrical system went down. It only had so much time to live before the pressure ran out and you have nothing. On the fourth day I ran out of drinking water, so I had to go to a place near the Nicomen River because it’s clean, clean water.
Q: What is the situation like in Nicomen now?
ND: Well, they said that the fire came along. The wind helped the fire kind of turn and not go straight on the east-facing slope to Nicomen. So it got missed. And they just got electricity back and the water is going to be back. But then there is no communication, so in a few days, I don’t know how many days, it’s going to be. You can go live back there at your own risk.
Q: What was it like to finally leave?
ND: Well, I had all my stuff packed and I went to the house to look for little things, like gifts my daughter got, my granddaughter got, I got over the years. Stuff that people gave us, and just prayed for the house and prayed for the community and it was a really sad thing for me to have to leave. That’s very hard.
When I found my family in Merritt, my youngest granddaughter was there already, so it was such a relief, and I was able to sleep.