5 years ago, B.C. was trapped under a heat dome. Here’s how it all played out

It was June 21, 2021.

Nicole Link was working in her textile fibre mill in Kamloops, B.C. An experienced yarn spinner, she was used to the humidity in the mill, which makes the fibre easier to work with.

“It was starting to get hot,” she said. “It was hotter in the mill than I thought. It was so hot outside.”

Kamloops reached a high of 34.1 C that day, according to Environment Canada.

When she finished her work, Link, then 47, didn’t feel well.

“I didn’t realize how dehydrated I was and how sick I was,” Link said. She was hot to the touch, but she had the chills, and she wasn’t sweating.

Then, she blacked out.

Her family later told her that she was behaving erratically, lashing out at her husband. They rushed her to the emergency room so she could be treated for heat stroke.

Two weeks later, Link woke up in the intensive care unit at Royal Inland Hospital, where she’d been in an induced coma.

Link’s heat stroke was just the beginning of what some experts have described as the most deadly weather event in Canadian history — a heat wave known as the 2021 western heat dome.

It started in mid-June when forecasters with Environment Canada noticed a weather pattern that would bring lasting heat to the province. They watched and waited to see how it would shift.

“Sometimes things show up on the forecast models but then they disappear as we get closer to the event, so we need to really verify whether this is going to be something that actually transpires or not,” Environment Canada warning preparedness meteorologist Bobby Sekhon said. “Especially because the values we were seeing were so high.”

On June 22, Environment Canada contacted the province to let officials know something was on the way.

The next day, Environment Canada issued a heat warning.

“At this point, we have enough certainty to say that this could be a significant hot spell … and we need to start to take precautions in advance,” Sekhon said.

A warm air mass had moved into the province, and a strong ridge of high pressure pushed that hot air down. Not only that, but the weather system didn’t move — it just stayed in place for days, Sekhon explained.

It was just after summer solstice and the days were long, keeping temperatures high longer. Overnight temperatures were high too; one evening, Environment Canada recorded an overnight low of 29 C on Burnaby Mountain.

Tamryn Fudge of Kamloops said her idea of comfort changed that week. She and her husband and two dogs dragged a mattress into the basement, where they holed up most of the week avoiding outdoor temperatures that reached as high as 46.4 C. When the temperature finally dipped down to 38 C at about 10:30 p.m., she took her dogs out for a walk.

“We just waited until it was bearable,” she said.

Sekhon said temperatures peaked across B.C. from June 26 to 29 — and that’s when things started getting busy for first responders.

When Lower Mainland paramedic Ian Tait arrived at work on Sunday, June 27, he could tell something horrible was happening. Calls had been going out to people who were off shift asking them to come in early.

“I don’t know if I could have ever anticipated that type of night,” he said. “I’ve never worked a shift that was that bad, and that so many patients died in one shift.”

The 911 system was overrun by calls, and “essentially collapsed,” Tait said.

A coroner’s report found that 911 calls doubled during the heat dome’s peak. On June 28, 11,970 calls were made to 911 across B.C.

According to the report, 911 dispatch aims to answer calls in five seconds or less. But between June 26 and 30, 29 per cent of calls took longer. Six callers were told that there was no ambulance available at the time of their call.

A total of 332 heat-related calls (54 per cent of the total) were attended by paramedics with a median response time of 10 minutes and 25 seconds. In 50 cases, paramedics took 30 minutes or longer from the time of the call until arrival.

Environment Canada reported that Lytton, B.C., had broken the record for hottest temperature ever recorded in the country on June 27 — 46.6 C.

And then it happened again on June 28 — 47.9 C.

Some businesses and worksites closed so people wouldn't have to work in the heat, while support workers took to the streets to make sure the unhoused population was cared for. Stores all over the province were sold out of air conditioners, fans and other cooling devices.

Jes Oja Andrews of Barriere, B.C., remembers her commute to work in Kamloops, a 45-minute drive, without air conditioning in her car. She said she had to put frozen water bottles under her armpits to try to stay cool.

First responders continued to respond to unprecedented levels of calls, all in full gear, including extra personal protective equipment, because this was all unfolding against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There was one call I did where I had to go have a shower afterwards," Tait said. "My entire uniform, it wasn’t just like I was sweaty — my boots had water in them.”

He said the situation was particularly dire in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, where there is a higher concentration of small apartments, many without air conditioning.

On June 29, the mercury hit 49.6 C in Lytton — the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada to this day, Sekhon said.

Other parts of the province were just as hot; Kamloops reached 47.3 C that day and Kelowna hit 45.7 C.

In the Kootenays, Brian Walker put on his life jacket and jumped into a lake, where he just floated in the cool water as often as he could.

“It was so damn hot,” he said.

Lytton, where temperature records had been set all week long, was razed by wildfire on June 30. The village was completely destroyed, and the rebuild continues today.

Residents told CBC News at the time that they had only moments to leave as the fire moved quickly.

Two people died in the fire.

The heat dome itself claimed many more lives.

At least 619 people died between June 25 and July 1 from heat-related causes, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. People aged 70 and older accounted for about two-thirds of those deaths. More than half of the people who died lived alone. Almost every single death — 98 per cent — happened indoors, in homes without adequate cooling systems.

Temperatures remained high, especially in B.C.’s Interior, until about July 5, Sekhon said. Kamloops, for example, had a high of 29.8 C that day — high, but not unusual in that part of the province for that time of year.

Calls to 911 began to stabilize, Tait said, but the psychological and physical toll the heat dome took on first responders lasted a little longer. People called in sick, needing more time than usual to recover from work. Some people were off work for much longer, Tait added.

Five years after the heat dome, some things have changed in B.C.

Communities have since created plans for extreme heat, with a focus on cooling centres and green spaces. The provincial building code now includes rules to ensure new builds are designed to prevent temperatures from getting too high.

In 2022, the province established the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, in response to the heat dome, wildfires and floods.

Environment Canada created a colour-coded weather alert system, giving people a clear visual representation of just how severe weather conditions could get.

B.C. Emergency Health Services executive vice-president and chief ambulance officer Leanne Heppell said several changes were made in terms of first responders, including but not limited to increased staffing.

“The heat dome was not a one-off event,” Heppell said in an email to CBC News. “As the effects of climate change intensify, we will continue to see periods of extreme heat and other natural disasters.”