Crews making steady progress on fires throughout B.C.

Cooler temperatures and a bit of precipitation allowed firefighters across the province to make "steady progress" on the nearly 250 wildfires currently burning across the province.

"The rain received over the weekend has curbed the fire behaviour, but only for a short period of time, allowing our crews to make some progress," said Rob Schweitzer,BC Wildfire Service director of fire centre operations.

"However, the amount of rain was not enough to make long-term impacts, and we'll see a return to those extremely dry conditions in the Southern Interior today and tomorrow. Conditions for the rest of the week remain variable across the province."

Schweitzer says the number of new fires each day has been below seven while the total number burning has remained below 250 each day.

He says a vast number of new fire starts over the long weekend were due to natural causes.

"Of the very small handful of human caused fires, all have been declared out, are under control or are being held.

To date, 1,312 wildfires have sparked since the start of the fire season April 1, burning more than 550,000 hectares of forest.

Schweitzer says the 10-year average to this point in the season is 760 fires and 114,000 hectares burned.