If you've noticed smoke on days it hasn't been snowing or raining recently, it's likely from a prescribed burn.

Local governments across the Okanagan including the Westbank First Nation are working to finish as many of their prescribed burn operations as possible before the weather gets too hot and dry.

A prescribed burn, sometimes called a controlled burn, is a planned and intentional use of fire on a specific land area to reduce wildfire risk, improve wildlife habitat, or restore ecosystems.

"it's not a question of if it will burn it's a question of when," said Dave Gill, general manager of WFN-owned Ntityix Resources.

On Tuesday, crews were working in the Trepanier area between West Kelowna and Peachland.

"What we're trying to do is reduce the amount of fuel that's out in the forest," Gill said.

"Some of that includes reducing some of the trees that are standing out there, opening up the canopy, taking out the ladder fuels, which are usually the smaller trees."

Workers like these are in a race against the warm weather.

"Guys are out here burning. They're using chainsaws. We can't do that when the weather's hot and dry," added Gill.

Forests like this one being treated in Trepanier that have been untouched by wildfire for years can be dangerous when fire season rolls around.

The McDougall Creek wildfire was one of the most destructive local wildfires in recent memory, destroying 303 structures in West Kelowna, Westbank First Nation, Kelowna and the RDCO. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimated the fire caused $480 million in insured damage.

The recent years, the Westbank First Nation is again being allowed to conduct cultural burning, the Indigenous practice of intentionally using controlled fires for cultural, spiritual, and ecological purposes.

"For thousands of years my people in the Okanagan have been doing this kind of work," said Charles Kruger, a self-described Okanagan Arrow Lakes First Nations man working with Gill's team.

"We all live here in the valley together, and no one's going anywhere. The thing is, we've got to keep each other safe and take pride in it too," he said.

Kruger is an avid outdoorsman and hunter, who has lived in and worked across the Okanagan. He says the forest is definitely getting drier.

"Certain snow packs, they're getting smaller. So what happens is, where the bucks and bulls used to drink water and hang out, they're not there anymore," he explained. "In my years of running a chainsaw in the South Okanagan into the Central Okanagan, we're surely getting drier all over the place."

Gill said fire had been a very important part of Indigenous Okanagan peoples up until 150 years ago.

"Prior to settlers coming in here and removing that right, they managed the forest with fire for thousands of years," said Gill.

The prescribed burning in Trepanier will be going on as long as it takes to thin out the underbrush, possibly years. Once the snow leaves the higher elevations this spring the crew will head up to the Upper Glenrosa area, which has been identified as a potential hot spot for wildfires.