The B.C. Government has spent $174-million to fight wildfires so far this fiscal year, according to new numbers from the Ministry of Finance.

It’s after 805 fires burned nearly 20,960 hectares across the province, the fewest hectares burned since 2013.

Fire Information Officer Erika Berg doesn’t expect that dollar figure to change too significantly in the rest of this fiscal year.

“Where we may see a little bit of growth is in those early months of spring. When March comes about, we may have some small starts and that may increase a little bit of our costs, and our total fire starts, but it won’t be consequential.”

Speaking to NL News, she says firefighting is an expensive endeavour.

“The equipment that we use, the personnel that we employ, our air tankers and dropping retardant, those are expensive missions. There still were many incidents that we had to respond to and then pay appropriately. It’s a fair price that we pay for keeping our communities safe and the fire activity under control.”

Given the wildfire activity in recent weeks and through the summer, Berg is not expecting any holdover fire to flare up next season, unlike years past.

This year’s figure is the lowest since 2016 when the province spent $129 million to fight 1,050 fires that burned 100,366 hectares.