Prince George, B.C.- Lighting is being  blamed for two new wildfires in the Prince George  Fire District.  Both were  sparked on July 4th, just east of the Bowron River, about 90 kms southeast of Prince George.

One of the fires is out, the other is in mop up stage. While not major fires (less than 10 hectares) they  add to the  statistics for the  first three months of the fire  season.

So, far there have been 128 fires in the Prince George Fire District, that’s more than  25% of the  total fires  to date (402) in the entire province.

The fires in the Prince George Fire District have also eaten up the most ground.  There have been 4,935 hectares burned in the Province since April 1st of this year.  Of that number, the majority of  burned hectares occurred  in the Forres Mountain fire,  north west of Williston Lake.  That  fire  was sparked by lightning and has  burned 4,337 hectares.

Last year there were 1,857 fires in B.C, and  560 (30.2%) were caused by humans.