While it’s been a mostly quiet summer so far on the wildfire front, there is still concern from the BC Wildfire Service.

Information Officer Erika Berg says a majority of the 722 fires they’ve responded to this year were deemed to human caused.

“So we have about 300 starts this year that were deemed lightning and then over 400 human caused,” she said, while speaking on the NL Morning News.

Berg says at the same time last year, crews had responded to just over 2,000 fires across the province, most of them caused by lightning.

“It does kind of go both ways in that you know, we haven’t had that many consequential lightning starts,” Berg added. “I’d say that one human caused start is too many. You know, you want to be responsible out there and do everything you can to keep those to a minimum.”

In 2019, 21,078 hectares has been burned across the province so far, a sharp drop from the over one million hectares burned in each of the past two fire seasons.

The BC Wildfire Service has crews responding to nine fires today in the Kamloops Fire Centre, started by lightning yesterday during a storm that rolled through the area.