Prince George Fire Rescue put out a grass fire Tuesday night along the CNR tracks – photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – Cool, wet weather has led to a slow start to this year’s wildfire season.

“Since April 1, the Prince George Fire Centre has responded to seven wildfires,” says fire information officer Amanda Reynolds. “Last year at this time we had responded to over 80 fires in the Prince George Fire Centre so a definite contrast and different from last year to this year.”

She continues “we really haven’t had a warm, drying trend. We’ve had a couple days of sunshine but then we had some rainfall and up in the Peace they received snowfall over the Easter weekend.”

Reynolds says the quiet start to the fire season isn’t exclusive to northern, B.C. either.

“Provincially, we’ve responded to 42 fires so far and in 2016 at this time it was 200.”

Despite the slow start, she says grass fires are common this time of year. Last night for example there were a series of small grass fires stretching from Prince George to Miworth.

“They are common,” says Reynolds. “As the grass cures, it’s good fire fuel essentially. So, we’re in the time before green up where grass fires can start in the Prince George Fire Centre easily.”

Looking ahead, she says the weekend is looking wet but cautions things are due to heat up by Monday when the forecasted high is expected to hit 20 degrees.

“A warm and dying trend is coming next week and with these long days it doesn’t take long for things to dry up,” says Reynolds.

“So, this isn’t the time for people to become complacent. We don’t have any prohibitions right now in the Prince George Fire Centre so if people are doing any burning they need to make sure they’ve followed the requirements and if they are doing a larger burn they are getting a registration number.”

*Editor’s Note – The Prince George Fire Centre has made a correction. It now says there were 7 wildfires in the Prince George Fire Centre as of April 1, 2017 – not 12 as they told 250News on Wednesday*