British Columbia is a huge expanse of land, most of which is still "wild" because it is so inaccessible. The attached map gives you some idea of the vastness--the entire UK & Ireland will fit inside BC with much land to spare.
There is a "heat dome" of extreme high pressure that has built over most of the province and down into the United States, affecting Oregon, Washington state, and Idaho. The temperatures since last Saturday have broken all Canadian records, reaching highs of 45-49C. As of noon yesterday (Wednesday), the BC Coroner reported 486 sudden and unexplained deaths, due to the heat. This is 321 more than would be normally seen.
The town of Lytton, where the highest temperature records were previously held (for all of Canada) saw the new record temperatures over the past few days. Last evening, residents began to smell smoke from a wild fire, and the Mayor ordered a full evacuation. Within just 15 minutes the town was being engulfed by flames. Apparently 90% is now burned to the ground (CTV report). Some residents are unaccounted for, but this may be due to the evacuation having occurred so rapidly, with people fleeing in every direction in their cars to other towns.
Here in the Greater Vancouver region where I live, we never see temperatures even close to what they have been the past few days, since we are on the coast and the Pacific gives us a mediterranean climate year-round. The normal for this time of year is around 20C, and "heat waves" of the low 30's are exceptions seen maybe once or at most twice in a summer, usually July or August. It can and normally does get very hot in the rest of Canada, from the prairies east to Ontario and Quebec and the Maritimes. Summer temperatures in the high 20's to low 30's C are not unusual for most of Canada east of the Rocky Mountains.
I fortunately have air conditioning in my Townhouse, and my car. Following the government's advice, I have stayed indoors, venturing out only to briefly water the flowers on the terrace or to buy groceries. A number of deaths, mostly elderly (like me!) people living alone, have been reported. There are "cooling" stations set up in Vancouver where people can get out of the sun and have water.
Mercifully, it began to cool down yesterday, and today even more. Currently it is 23C in Maple Ridge, which is a vast improvement from the 40+ of the four days prior to yesterday. The "dome" is slowly moving eastward, and Alberta is I gather now being seriously impacted.
