Early grass fires concerning officials

It’s only mid-March and there have already been some scares in the Thompson-Okanagan when it comes to wildfire activity.

Warm, windy and relatively dry weather has combined to dry out lighter fuels like dead grasses.

Three early season fires in the Southern Interior are now considered under control.

The B.C. Wildfire Service says the small grass fires broke out on the weekend west of Merritt, west of Penticton and east of Kamloops city limits.

“All three fires are believed to be human-caused,” fire information officer Gagan Lidhran said.

There have now been five small wildfires reported in the Southern Interior in the past week.

The 2020 wildfire season in B.C. was quieter than anticipated, with 637 wildfires burning just over 15,000 hectares of land between April 1 and Oct. 1, 2020. Over the past 10 years, on average, 1,356 wildfires have occurred and 347,104 hectares have burned over a full fire season.

In 2018, according the B.C. government statistics, a total of 2,117 fires consumed 1,354,284 hectares of land, which surpassed the previous record for hectares burned from 2017 (over 1.2 million hectare).

(With files from the Canadian Press)