With cooler weather across B.C.'s Interior over the past week, fire activity has calmed significantly in most areas of the province.
During Thursday's wildfire update, the BC Wildfire Service's Todd Nessman said it's been a "relatively quiet week" for firefighters across the province, after the extreme fire behaviour seen earlier this month.
As a result, some firefighting resources are being sent home, and the BCWS' helicopter and air tanker fleets are being reduced. There remains about 3,400 personnel working across the province though.
Nessman noted they are still facing some challenges on the massive White Rock Lake fire, burning between Vernon and Kamloops.
"There still is some concerns around that northeast corner; they were unable to conduct that large-scale ignition operation to secure the flank they were hoping to, just with some of the wind conditions, it wasn't the right environment so they put a pause on that," Nessman said.
"Otherwise, they're pretty happy with operations and how things are going. They're feeling confident that they have a good hold on this and in the coming days they're hopeful they'll be able to provide some recommendations around [evacuation] orders and alerts."
A number of properties along the north end of Westside Road remain evacuated due to the fire.
The week-long forecast doesn't show any significant weather events that are too concerning from a wildfire perspective, Nessman added.
This fire season, 1,551 fires have burned about 862,000 hectares. Nessman said the province has so far spent somewhere in the $400-million range on fire suppression. The province spent a record $649 million fighting fires in 2017.
