So far so good for this year’s wildfire season but the chief fire information officer for the BC Wildfire Service says the worst may be ahead of us.

Kevin Skrepnek says while all the signs are there for another brutal wildfire season so far fire activity has been about average.

“We are almost exactly on average in terms of the number of fires we have had so far this year. In fact pretty dramatically below our average in terms of hectares burnt, in term of the size of these fires. We only had a little over 11,000 hectares burnt since April 1st. A ten year average for this date would be closer to about 25,000 although that is skewed somewhat by a few busy springs we have had in the past.”

However.

“Looking at the tea leaves right now there is definitely conditions in place for a busier than normal season.”

Skrepnek says if the stats can be counted on then the worst of the fire season might arrive soon.

“You can pretty much set your watch to the fact that the late July to the late August period is usually going to be your most intense. But that is tricky you look at 2017 for example the first week of July was when a lot of those major fires started. We could only be a few weeks out if the conditions line up.”

Skrepnek says Mother Nature will play a key role in how bad or not the remaining fire season will be.

He says while rain is in the forecast for some of the province so is lightning and for southern B.C. thing are forecast to be hot and dry.

There are 49 active fires as of Wednesday with 16 new fire starts in the last two days.

Year to date the province has seen 358 wildfires.