The BC Wildfire Service is deploying 210 personnel to northern Alberta to help fight fires.

Information officer Kyla Fraser says B.C. has now provided more than 800 total fire personnel to northern Alberta this fire season.

“Alberta is currently, when you look at all of Canada, they are the province of highest concern in terms of the wildfire risk and the fires that are burning currently. We have sent quite a few personnel there over the past few weeks. Their requests are starting to slow down a little bit which is good news. I think the fire situation is starting to get a little bit more under control.”

More than 803,000 hectares have burned in Alberta so far this fire season.

Fraser points out B.C. has the resources to spare right now – as only about 11,000 hectares have burned in the province which is well below the average of about 28,000 hectares at this point.

“I know even in terms of our 10-year average we’ve been quite below the normal in terms of the number of hectares burned. We’ve had about 370 fires, and that’s quite on average over the past 10 years on the number of fire starts we would usually see around this time of year.”

Personnel deployed out of B.C. can stay out of province for a maximum of 19 days.