Prince George, B.C. – The Prince George region has fared well so far in the recent warm, dry spell but it is no time to let the guard down with more sunshine, near 30 degree temperatures and nothing for rain in the forecast in the coming week.

The Fire Chief’s office has issued a city-wide burning ban until further notice and campfires are banned virtually province-wide, with that order also in effect indefinitely.

Prince George Fire Centre Information Officer Jill Kelsh says “‘we have had a number of new fires this weekend, still remaining up in the Fort Nelson Fire Zone.”  She says seven new fires were reported Friday with more on Saturday.  “Basically we’re still picking up the old lightning fires but we did get some rain up north, which is in our problem area, so we were able to pull off the evacuation order and downgrade it to an alert.”

Kelsh says there are no new fires of note in the PG Fire Centre, no fires caused by campers.  She adds “we’ve had a couple of industry starts but they’re on restricted work as well when we get to a certain level of fire danger.   But the campfire ban has certainly helped I think and people are now realizing what the dangers are out there and how important it is that they do follow the rules and don’t have any campfires.”  She says the Wildfire Management Branch has patrols out all weekend to make sure people are complying.

The fire danger rating in the PG Fire Centre is mainly high, with some very northern areas listed as extreme.

Kelsh says no firefighting resources have been sent from BC to Saskatchewan to deal with the 114 active fires that have forced about 8-thousand people from their homes and closed 7 northern highways.  “No resources have been sent”, she says, “because of the growing fire danger rating in BC.  There’s no sign we will send any resources, we’ll utilize ours to fight the fires that we have here in BC.”

She also says to date, no firefighters here have been sent to problem fires elsewhere in the province, such as the Huckleberry fire burning east of Kelowna.  “What will start happening as of next week is that they’ll look at the different fires that we have around BC, see what resources we have and they might send resources into different areas.  But as of right now, we’re going to keep all the crews that we have in the Prince George Fire Centre to help us out.”