Lytton residents will have their class-action lawsuit against Canada’s two major railway companies heard in the B.C. Supreme Court, thanks partly to new evidence of high brake temperatures on a train passing through the community shortly before the town burned.

The news comes almost 4 ½ years after a fire on June 30, 2021, levelled 90 per cent of the village’s buildings and killed two residents.

In a decision issued Tuesday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ward Branch agreed to certify a class-action lawsuit brought by residents against Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway.