TERRIFYING

Two Dead in British Columbia as Wildfires Burn and Lightning Rains Down

The country’s West coast endured record-breaking heat before bursting into flames, and the smoke has caused extreme lightning.

Two people are dead as wildfires brought on by a record-breaking heatwave ravage British Columbia. The two victims were in the town of Lytton, which broke Canada’s record for highest temperature ever recorded earlier this week before bursting into flames. The town’s mayor ordered all residents to evacuate. Coroners dispatched to the region said their preliminary findings indicated two deaths but that the toll was likely to rise. The smoke and heat have become so intense that the resulting pyrocumulonimbus clouds brought down 710,177 lightning strikes on the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta in just 15 hours, experts from the company Vaisala told SFGate. The electrical pulses are likely to create even more fires.