Prince George, B.C.-  A cold front moving into  the  province  will  be  packing gusty winds, and that  is not what the  folks battling fires in B.C.  need right now.“Certainly wind has been a huge challenge for us already  so far this season,  and unfortunately  it looks like this cold front , in many places,  is going to be dry” says  BC Wildfire Service Chief Information Officer Kevin Skrepnek.

“We are definitely concerned” says Skrepnek “Given the forecast, realistically  on a number of these fires, we are likely gong to be seeing  some growth and  increased  activity.”

As of today, the Hanceville-Riske Creek  fire is estimated to be 215 thousand hectares in size,  while the Elephant Hill fire is  estimated to be  168 thousand hectares.

Skrepnek says it is likely the wind will cause both of those fires to flare up ” Definitely the complex  of fires throughout the Chilcotin are  going to get bad as well.”

If there is a  silver lining,  Skrepnek says  crews have been successful in knocking down a number of small fires ” We’ve had  new fires in the Cariboo and in  Kamloops yesterday that we were able to  hit  quite aggressively from the air and the ground and kept them to a small size, and really that’s been the order of the day.”