Photo: BC Wildfire Service

Two new fires east of Merritt were being held as of Sunday afternoon.

UPDATE 7:55 p.m.

Two wildfires burning east of Merritt are now listed as being held.

The larger of the two grew to 51 hectares before crews got the upper hand on Sunday afternoon. Located near Pahomin Creek in the Douglas Lake area, the fire was discovered on Saturday. It is believed to be human-caused.

The other fire, north of Highway 97C near Pothole Creek, was being held at 0.6 hectares. It was also discovered on Saturday. The suspected cause is human activity.

There are currently 30 active fires in British Columbia, eight of which started in the last 24 hours.

In the Kamloops Fire Centre, there are nine fires. All are under control or being held.

UPDATE: 10:55 a.m.

Five firefighters with the BC Wildfire Service are responding to the 40-hectare fire burning east of Merritt Sunday morning.

Fire information officer Cassidy Martin said a response officer attended the scene of the fire Saturday night after it was first reported, and the initial attack team headed to the fire, just south of Douglas Lake, first thing Sunday morning.

"It's Rank 1, 2, with pockets of 3, so that's really just a low, smouldering ground fire with some more smoky and active areas once it gets into the trees," Martin said.

"But it's mostly just grasses and things like that, there's no structures, nothing around that we're concerned about being threatened at all."

The crew that's now fighting the larger 40-hectare fire spent Saturday night working on a smaller fire that burned closer to the Okanagan Connector. That fire, east of the Aspen Grove area, grew to just 0.6 hectares in size, but it's now considered "held."

"They were able to get a wet line around it ... so we're not concerned about any impacts to the highway or anything of the sort," Martin said, describing it as a low, smouldering ground fire with not much flame at all.

While both fires are suspected to have been human caused, Martin had no details about how the fires were started.

ORIGINAL: 8:40 a.m.

Two human-caused wildfires were discovered east of Merritt Saturday evening, and one has grown to at least 40 hectares in size.

According to a Saturday night update on the BC Wildfire Service map, the 40-hectare fire is burning out of control about 35 kilometres east of Merritt, just south of Douglas Lake.

The other fire, which burned just north of the Okanagan Connector near the Aspen Grove area, is now considered held, after it grew to just 0.6 hectares in size.

Both fires are suspected to be human caused, although the BC Wildfire Service has not provided any details about how they started.

The size of the BCWS' response to the fires is not known at this time. Castanet has reached out to a BCWS fire information officer more information.