Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Michael Reeve

LYTTON REBUILDING

‘A tangible symbol that we are coming back’; Lytton unveils first municipal building more than four years after fire

Aug 29, 2025 | 4:20 PM

LYTTON, B.C. — After setting multiple records this week as the hottest spot in the country, temperatures cooled off on Friday (Aug. 29) just in time for a celebration. More than four years since a devastating wildfire razed more than 90 per cent of the community during the summer of 2021, the Village of Lytton has opened its first municipal building.

The new public works building is set to provide a home to the community’s hard working staff, while simultaneously showing anybody watching that Lytton will return to it’s former glory.

“I’m sure there are many people out there still wondering what is happening in Lytton,” said Mayor Denise O’Connor. “And this really does. It’s a symbol, a tangible symbol that we are coming back and we are moving forward, and Lytton is going to be a town where people are going to want to come to.”

The provincial government provided $1 million to the construction of the facility.

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“It has been a long road and I don’t think it was anticipated at the beginning how complicated the rebuilding would be. We have supported the Village of Lytton with $40 million,” stated B.C. Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness Kelly Greene.

Through the ever-present scars of the 2021 wildfire, more than a dozen new houses are scattered throughout the village’s core as the community slowly returns home.

“I came back on Friday. It’s home but we need a community now. We need the village to grow, and this is a start right here,” said Dean Adams, who lost his home in the 2021 fire. “It’s something to see and something to look forward too. Building maybe a store, get it going here in Lytton, get a main street going.”

One week ago, Adams was finally able to return to Lytton, the place he was born, a place he never considered leaving.

“We got the people coming back, we need the businesses. We need some kind of business to come back to Lytton,” added Adams. “We miss the store, we miss the location where we can meet, sit down and talk.”

O’Connor was elected just over a year post fire. Now more than four years since that June day, the rebuild process, while exciting, has been fraught with challenges.

“I do know that the homes that are built here are almost all through insurance, and I do know that there are as much as people were hoping that governments would step up and provide money to build houses, that is not a reality at all,” said O’Connor.

With the ribbon now cut at the public works building, the next big project on the horizon for the village is a new village office, set to rise from the ground at Fourth and Main. O’Connor noted construction on the two-storey building could begin as soon as this fall.