B.C. health officials mark 5 year anniversary of deadly 2021 heat dome

Tait called the heat dome a “traumatic and overwhelming” event for people who lost loved ones – as well as for frontline workers.

“We wanted to acknowledge how many people lost loved ones five years ago through that horrible tragedy and also kind of talked about how many paramedics and dispatchers as well as other frontline first responders including hospital staff,” he added.

More than 600 lives were lost across the province – including 17 in Kamloops. The BC Coroner’s death review panel report later revealed that over half of the deaths occurred on June 28 and 29, the days with the highest temperatures.

“I worked one of the nights that was probably one of the worst nights and i know a lot of my colleagues did as well,,” Tait said. “It was a classic evening where you could just tell that [it] is hurting a lot of people. A lot of people have died. There’s been a lot of suffering.

“We watched effectively the 911 system collapsed for a certain period of time as the volume was just unsustainable.”

More than a 100 heat records were broken between June 25 and July 1, 2021, as temperatures were 20 degrees above normal in some communities like Kamloops and Lytton, which was destroyed by a fast moving wildfire on June 30 that year.

Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said many lessons have been learned in the last five years.

“It was the indoor temperature that was the main issue and the fact it didn’t cool down at night and people’s homes didn’t get cooled down at night,” Henry said. “We now know that temperatures over 26 C really can lead to health effects.”

In a statement, Henry added her thoughts are with those who live with trauma from the event and she knows of the “tremendous effect” on people who lost loved ones and on the first responders and health-care workers who were overwhelmed with people needing help.

Henry added the province launched a heat alert response system and an extreme heat preparedness guide in response to the deaths. It also now requires all new builds to be able to maintain an indoor air temperature of not more than 26 C in at least one living space in each housing unit.

In Kamloops, city staff are looking into the possibility of requiring existing rental units to have proper cooling equipment, so at least one part of the house won’t exceed that 26 C threshold.

“I know landlords of these buildings aren’t going to be happy about it, Councillor Dale Bass, who put forward that motion told CFJC Today. “They are going to have issues, raise them, tell staff, let us work our way through this. Maybe we need to lobby the provincial government for some grants, I don’t know. That is why we have staff.”

No timelines are known, but that move comes as Henry urged continued caution, as she noted the 2021 heat dome will not be the last such event in the province.

“These measures that we have in place mean that people can plan ahead,” Henry said. “They can recognize who in their community, who in their family are more at risk, and they can make plans to support them. As well, communities are now way better prepared than we were before.”

The province has also invested millions into the ambulance service so it can better respond during large-scale emergencies. It include a clinical safety plan that allows for the redeployment of staff and ambulances when activated, as well as hiring more staff for its disaster risk reduction team.

Leanne Heppell, chief ambulance officer for B.C. Emergency Health Services, said the service added more than 2,000 paramedic, dispatch and emergency medical responder positions between 2017 and October 2025 and added permanent staff to more rural ambulance stations versus on-call staff.

“Since this tragedy, BCEHS has made significant organizational changes to ensure we are better prepared to respond to future heat events and other natural disasters and large scene emergencies,” Heppell said in an emailed statement.

It is welcome news to the paramedics union as Tait said it had been calling for these investments for years.

“I honestly don’t believe that we would see the level of collaboration and investment in the ambulance service if [the heat dome] didn’t happen,” Tait said, noting “so many things come from tragedies.”

“The reality of things is that sometimes it needs a big event to happen to foster change. That’s not how we want to see change happen, but that’s unfortunately the world we live in and how politics sometimes works.”

– With files from Global BC and The Canadian Press

by Victor Kaisar

B.C. health officials mark 5 year anniversary of deadly 2021 heat dome

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